There's something I've been sitting on for a few weeks now. Something that doesn't make for a fun Instagram caption or a slick product drop announcement. But this is the Race Journal — we talk honestly here, even when it's uncomfortable.

Turn1 t-shirt prices may go up in the coming weeks and months.

I'm not saying this to build pressure or create some artificial urgency to "buy now before prices rise." That's not really our style — and if you've been following us for a while, you probably already know that. I'm saying it because I think you deserve an honest explanation of what's going on, both for us specifically and for the broader world we're all operating in right now.

The World Is On Fire. Literally.

The US-Iran war that broke out in February 2026 has done what most wars do — it has sent shockwaves through every industry that depends on oil. And that list of industries is longer than most people realise.

Brent crude, which was sitting around $70 a barrel before the conflict, has surged well past $100. The Strait of Hormuz carries roughly 20% of global oil supply. When shipowners started avoiding it almost immediately after hostilities escalated, it didn't just affect petrol prices. It started pulling at every thread of the global supply chain.

Why This Hits T-Shirts and Small Businesses

This is the part that surprises most people — because cotton is natural, right? It grows in the ground. What does it have to do with oil?

A lot, it turns out.

Cotton farming depends heavily on diesel — for tractors, irrigation pumps, ginning machinery, and the trucks that move raw cotton from farm to mill. Fertilisers used in cotton cultivation are largely derived from natural gas and petrochemicals. The dyeing and finishing processes at fabric mills consume enormous amounts of energy, most of it from diesel-powered industrial machinery.

The inks used in printing? Crude oil derivatives.

The packaging your order ships in? Petrochemical-based.

The courier trucks that bring it to your doorstep? Diesel again.

The list goes on. Oil touches cotton at almost every stage between field and wardrobe — even when the fabric itself contains no synthetic content at all.

The numbers are showing up in real time. Indian cotton prices surged from around ₹52,000 per candy in early March to ₹63,000 by the first week of April — an increase of ₹11,000 in just over a month. Cotton yarn prices followed, rising roughly ₹25/kg in the same window. Spinning mills in Tamil Nadu, which accounts for nearly half of India's spinning capacity, are already reporting supply challenges and mounting cost pressures. Our suppliers have already increased costs anywhere between 25-40%.

And here's the tricky part about how supply chains actually work: the pain doesn't hit everyone at the same time.

Fabric mills absorb the cost shock first. Then yarn manufacturers. Then the vendors who supply us. Then brands like us. We're usually the last to feel it — and by the time it reaches us, there's often very little room to absorb it quietly.

The Honest Small Business Math

We've largely held our prices steady over the last couple of months. Deliberately. Not because the economics have always been easy — they haven't — but because we believe our t-shirts need to be accessible to the Indian F1 fan who isn't paying European prices for merchandise.

But small businesses don't have the buffer that large corporations do. We operate in small batches. We don't hedge raw material purchases months in advance. When our vendors call us and say costs have gone up, we can't exactly go back to our fabric suppliers and renegotiate a global oil price.

The second and third-order effects of geopolitical disruptions are also the most unpredictable. You don't always know how bad it's going to be until three months have passed and the invoices are already on your desk. That's not pessimism — that's just the honest reality of running a small manufacturing-adjacent business in 2026.

When our prices do change, it won't be dramatic. And it won't be to pad margins — if you've read our quality explainer (and if you haven't, go read it), you already know we're not cutting corners on fabric or print. That stays. It has to — because a Turn1 tee that doesn't feel as good one year from now as it did when you bought it is a Turn1 tee we'd be embarrassed to put our name on.

What This Means For You Right Now

If you've been on the fence about picking up a Driver Series tee or a combo pack — honestly, now is a reasonable time to do it. Not because we're manufacturing urgency, but because prices are genuinely more stable right now than they may be in a few weeks.

We also have new drops in the pipeline. We're not pausing the design work — if anything, we're doubling down on it. But new designs will likely launch at prices that reflect whatever the new material reality looks like when they arrive.

The Bigger Picture

This is what wars do. Not just to the people directly in their path — though that cost is obviously the most unbearable — but to the quiet, mundane economic life of people and small businesses everywhere. An F1 merchandise brand in Bengaluru shouldn't have to think about the Strait of Hormuz. And yet.

Formula 1 itself is no stranger to this kind of geopolitical turbulence. The 1973 oil crisis genuinely threatened the sport's survival — fuel costs for teams became prohibitive almost overnight, and several races were cancelled or restructured. The sport adapted. It always does. Small businesses are a little less nimble, but we adapt too.

We'll keep you updated. If and when prices change, we'll be transparent about it — just like this post. That's the only way we know how to run this.

In the meantime, check out what's currently available across our full catalog. Same quality. Same love for the sport. Same free shipping across India.