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Round 13 of the Formula One (F1) 2023 season is currently underway in Belgium at the iconic Spa-Francorchamps track between 28th July and 30th July, before F1 goes into its summer break. As part of the Belgian Grand Prix, Alfa Romeo F1 Team Stake is carrying a special car livery as a nod to Kick. Streaming platform Kick finds itself featured on the F1 cars once again but this time around, there are other subtle references to the site. The car’s halo also features the names of Kick creators Félix “xQc” Lengyel, and Hikaru Nakamura.
xQc also reacted to his name being featured on the Alfa Romeo F1 car on a recent livestream.
xQc Reacts to His Name on F1 Car: “Oh! That’s Real.”
On 24th July, the Alfa Romeo F1 team revealed its new livery for the Grand Prix. Some of the features of the new livery are a Kick-themed color scheme, names of some prominent content creators on the car's halo, and also a subtle dig at Twitch as Kick advertised its unique 95-5 subscription revenue split on the car’s side.
On his recent Kick livestream, xQc reacted to the Kick branding on the Alfa Romeo Stake car during the Qualifying. As he watched the onboard view of Valterri Bottas’ No 77 car, he noticed his name on the Halo, zoomed in, and said, “Oh! That’s real! That is insane. Okay! Mama, I made it. Dada, I made it. No, they cannot take this away from me, dude. Chat, guys, people can try whatever they want, people say some dumb sh**. But this is ink! This is in ink, yo.”
Likewise, on 25th July, Hikaru tweeted, “The whole ride on @KickStreaming so far has been amazing, and it's an honor to see my name is going to be featured on the Alfa Romeo car during the F1 race this weekend in Belgium!!”
Stake is the title sponsor for the Switzerland-based team and has its logo displayed all over the car. However, during the race in Australia’s Albert Park, the car, for the first time, featured Kick logos and branding temporarily. This change in branding was reportedly believed to be due to certain restrictions in Victoria around gambling advertisements.
Following this, the Stake logos were back on the car for the other races. Now that the F1 circus has landed in Belgium, the car has again swapped out Stake for Kick.
It is speculated that the Belgian livery of this car featuring Kick would not be permanent and that it is possibly because of the Belgian laws around gambling, preventing the team from using the name of Stake as it normally would.
In the recent days, xQc has been prominently featured on mainstream media. The streamer is also in the upcoming Netflix documentary: Depp v. Heard.
