During the Formula One Miami Grand Prix weekend, there were many exciting moments on the track, but a few important off-track moments as well. To open the weekend, the Italian food company known for its pastas and sauces, made a major announcement.
On Thursday night, ahead of the Miami Grand Prix festivities, Barilla invited the families of drivers and crew members of the Visa Cash App Racing Bulls team. With a global schedule and international travel a regularity in F1, families often spend more time away from each other than together.
In the spirit of Italian families and their traditions of Sunday dinners, the family members of the VCARB team, as well as members of the media, were invited for a night of conversation, friends, and delicious food at Torno Subito in Miami. That meal included the now famous Barilla racing wheels pasta.
However, there was one guest who stuck out just a bit. Mikaela Shiffrin, the most decorated alpine skier in American history, doesn't drive an open-wheel racecar, but she's as synonymous with Barilla pasta as the pasta itself at this point.
Mikaela Shiffrin Shares in Barilla's Success
Mikaela Shiffrin eats pasta and makes an appearance at the Barilla F1 event at Torno Subito. Image courtesy of Barilla
A partnership that has lasted for practically all of Shiffrin's professional career, has now budded into something greater. In 2025, Barilla became the official pasta of F1, but now, they have taken on a bigger role with a new partnership with the VCARB team. Two Italian icons together.
For Shiffrin, seeing the growth that Barilla has had in the sports world has been part of her professional journey. This next step with VCARB and F1 is just that, the next step.
"I've seen Barilla go through such incredible and amazing growth and so many amazing [things] like every single year there's some new area that Barilla's sort of expanding into or promoting and it's always been centered around some key values, and generally around family, around sharing food and connecting with people through the beauty of pasta and all that you can create from it," Shiffrin said in an interview with Athlon Sports.
It also doesn't hurt that before Barilla was involved in F1, Shiffrin was already a fan. Now that fandom has taken on a new role.
"I think it's what I am like particularly inspired by watching other sports and being able to see top level athletes, coaches, and teams work at their best when the pressure is high just to sort of connect with that from a mentality perspective, every sport is different, right, and the demands are different and like ski racing is not the same as racing in a Formula One race, but there's a lot of similarities."
Shiffrin Sees Similarities in Skiing, F1
Just what can Mikaela Shiffrin relate to between what she does on the slopes and what F1 drivers do on the track? When it comes down to it, racing is racing. Aerodynamics, G-force, and a lot of the little details are comparable. That's exactly how Shiffrin sees it, too.
"In ski racing, you know, we don't have an engine, we have gravity," the Olympic champion explained. "But otherwise the physics of a turn, a fast turn, are very, very similar. So it's how you nail, whether you nail the apex of a turn completely determines how much speed and force you carry out of it, and that propels you into the next one. And with Formula One, like, the apexes are one of the main things they talk about, and the forces through that actually build up in a very similar capacity.
"Skiing, we're pretty regularly hitting 4G forces on any given turn. And when you think about it in Formula One, and you're like, this is what you're sustaining."
The intensity of being an Olympic athlete and being an F1 driver appear to be similar. Dedicating yourself to a single discipline for your entire life, and the physical and mental toll it can take on an athlete to remain at the top of their game – that is universal.
Arvid Lindblad Has a Fan in Shiffrin
Arvid Lindblad smiles for the camera during the Barilla, VCARB dinner at Torno Subito. Image courtesy of Barilla
When Mikaela Shiffrin hit the scene in skiing, she was very young. Just a teenager, Shiffrin was able to navigate her sport by being relatively under the radar. In F1, the most popular motorsport in the world, there is nowhere for young drivers to hide.
That's why Shiffrin can relate to and sympathize with young drivers like rookie Arvid Lindblad. The 18 year old is in his first season in F1 with the VCARB team. The pressure he's up against is enormous.
"I'm really interested to see how the rookie VCARB driver, how Arvid is kind of progressing," Shiffrin said. "I got to meet him tonight just briefly and he seems to be very level headed. But, it's hard to say. You know, at an event, right, and these drivers have so much that they've got to do during these weeks, but it's interesting to hear how he speaks, how he – his self awareness, I feel like.
"It has a really great potential to build into great performances but in his rookie season and being the only rookie this season, I believe."
When asked to compare her experience as a teenage athlete to Lindblad, Shiffrin was honest. The gap in popularity between alpine skiing and F1 is rather great.
"I think, you know, the extra sort of attention around the sport makes it tough in a way that I could never imagine because I built into sort of a spotlight. Sort of progressive like a slow progression or a consistent progression, and that made it a lot easier to, you know … it's bite sized pieces at a time.
"I think for some of these rookie drivers coming into Formula One it's a completely different story. They go from, you know, it's really focused solely around racing to it's focused around a lot of things all at once. So that's, I learned a lot from how these drivers, it's sort of sink or swim and how they find a way to swim in this environment when there's maybe not a lot of help."
Mikaela Shiffrin is keeping an eye on her new Barilla family member Arvid Lindblad this season, and wherever Barilla goes, you can almost count on her being somewhere nearby.
This story was originally published by Athlon Sports on May 14, 2026, where it first appeared in the Racing section. Add Athlon Sports as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
