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"  When Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo (better known as the French synth duo Daft Punk) made a cameo appearance on a balcony overlooking last month&amp;#039;s Monaco Grand Prix, the stunt represented a carefully curated merging between Formula 1 racing and mainstream music, based on the band and Columbia Records&amp;#039; relationship with the Lotus F1 team. Daft Punk, clad in custom tailored one-off racing suits designed and executed by motorsports apparel giant Alpinestars, was only appearing in public for the third time in a 20 year music career. F1&amp;#039;s massive global audience proved a strong enough draw to pull the enigmatic bandmembers out of the shadows, where they&amp;#039;re usually hiding behind bespoke helmets and hypnotizing, robotized vocals.      Matching Formula 1 livery on the Lotus F1 car driven by Romain Grosjean seemed to seal a marketing deal made in heaven-- that is, until his Renault-powered steed collided with a Toro Rosso car, which forced the Lotus out of the race. In an ironic postscript, Daft Punk&amp;#039;s &amp;quot;Random Access Memories&amp;quot; album has fared considerably better, breaking records and streaming over 40 million times since its debut, suggesting that sometimes its better to bet on the audience than the race. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/a9091/daft-punk-formula-one/>