Just over a year into their career, CORTIS have already played the NBA. Now they’re taking on Formula 1 and they’re doing it as the only K-pop group on the entire bill. For a quintet that debuted in August 2025, that’s not a slow build. That’s a rocket.
On October 8, Big Hit Music confirmed that CORTIS will perform at the Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix 2026, held on the Marina Bay Street Circuit, on Friday, October 9. The group will deliver an energetic, roughly 50-minute set at the Padang Stage an open-air venue capable of holding around 60,000 people promising the kind of explosive performance that matches the adrenaline of a night race.
Sharing a Stage With Legends
The scale of the invitation becomes clear when you look at the company CORTIS are keeping. This year’s F1 Singapore lineup reads like a global festival poster: Singaporean mandopop icon JJ Lin (Lin Junjie), pop legend Janet Jackson, Lana Del Rey, and Zara Larsson, among others. CORTIS stand as the sole K-pop act in that roster a notable distinction for a group still measured in months rather than years.
The F1 Singapore Grand Prix is one of Asia’s largest motorsport-and-entertainment spectacles, fusing a dramatic downtown night race with a weekend of marquee concerts. To be the lone Korean name on a stage shared with Janet Jackson and Lana Del Rey isn’t just a booking it’s a signal of where the industry believes CORTIS are headed.
“This is our first visit to Singapore,” the members said. “We’re so excited to show our music and performance at a huge festival where audiences from all over the world gather. We’ll put on a stage worthy of the F1 heat.”
A Rookie Résumé That Reads Like a Veteran’s
What makes this moment resonate is the context of CORTIS’s astonishing first year. The five-member group James, Juhoon, Martin, Seonghyeon, and Keonho debuted on August 18, 2025, with the digital single “What You Want,” arriving as Big Hit Music’s first new boy group in six years following TOMORROW X TOGETHER, and only its third ever after BTS. That lineage alone guaranteed scrutiny; the group has met it with results.
Their debut EP, Color Outside the Lines, entered the Billboard 200 at No.15 the second-highest charting debut album for any K-pop act while ranking No.1 in first-week sales among new acts of the year. The group’s name itself encodes their ethos: “CORTIS” is drawn from the phrase “Color Outside the Lines,” signaling a commitment to creative freedom unbound by convention. True to that, they’ve positioned themselves as a “young creator crew,” co-producing their own music, choreography, and visual content a self-directed approach rare for rookies in a famously manufactured industry.
Why the Sports World Keeps Calling
The F1 appearance isn’t a one-off. CORTIS have been quietly assembling a résumé of global sports crossovers including an NBA appearance and a Red Bull tie-in that few acts, let alone rookies, can claim. There’s a logic to it. Global sporting events increasingly court K-pop to reach young, international, highly engaged audiences, and CORTIS offer exactly that: a telegenic, high-energy act with a built-in global fanbase and the kind of self-made credibility that reads as authentic rather than packaged.
It also reflects a broader shift. Where earlier generations of K-pop groups built their international profile primarily through album promotions and world tours, CORTIS are embedding themselves directly into the fabric of global live culture at basketball arenas, race circuits, and festival stages before they’ve even completed their second year. The strategy accelerates exposure dramatically, placing them in front of millions who might never attend a standalone K-pop concert.
A Night Race, a Rising Group
The symbolism almost writes itself: a brand-new group, barely a year old, performing under floodlights beside a Formula 1 circuit as the engines roar through Marina Bay. CORTIS have spent their first year refusing to be framed as “the next BTS,” insisting instead on their own identity. An opening-night slot at one of Asia’s biggest entertainment events, as the only K-pop name among global legends, is a compelling argument that they’re succeeding.
When the lights hit the Padang Stage on Friday night, CORTIS won’t just be representing themselves. They’ll be the lone K-pop presence at a global spectacle and if the past year is any guide, they’ll treat it as exactly the kind of stage they were built for.