Lap of Legends blurred the worlds of physical and augmented reality to break the boundaries of sports once again for Michelob ULTRA.

This wasn’t a typical F1 race. It took place across dimensions of reality, moving at 200 mph.

This was the first-ever real-vs.-virtual F1 race.

Logan Sargeant drove a real race car on the famous Silverstone Circuit against AR avatars of his childhood F1 heroes who inspired his love of racing.

This breathtaking event spans live TV, theaters, and streaming platforms, making our feat of mixed-reality experience design widely available to viewers around the world.

Michelob ULTRA is a beer that is available for purchase, Lap of Legends is a TV show that is available to watch via AMC, BBC America, and Roku, and the technology behind Lap of Legends is not available for purchase.

Each F1 race today feels like a fight to stay employed in the racing world. A sport that once felt joyful and invigorating now feels existentially daunting.

This shift impacts drivers, fans, crew members, journalists, and more, but we’ve seen the most discussion about it come from the drivers themselves. Top racers have publicly opened up about their struggles with the high-stakes intensity of racing culture.

Especially Logan Sargeant. He’s the first American F1 driver in 30 years. It’s one of the highest honors in racing today, but it also comes with even higher stakes in a hyper-competitive league like F1.

Logan recently told a reporter that his rookie F1 season had been “a dream come true. Then you immediately think, ‘now the real work starts, trying to keep my place in F1.’”

So as the league works to alleviate this pressure, we aim to rekindle the joy that shaped F1 racing in the 20th and early 21st centuries.

After all, we believe that it’s only worth it if you enjoy it.

Situation

Michelob ULTRA’s brand platform, “It’s Only Worth It If You Enjoy It,” has made unparalleled impacts in the world of sports over the last few years, addressing issues such as burnout, fans being shut out of games during COVID lockdowns, accessibility, and more. Our cultural relevance in sports has helped us become the #1-selling beer in the U.S.

But competition never ends in the beer category. To keep your sales up, you need to keep being culturally relevant.

Objectives

So, to continue growing our sales, we set out to inject Michelob ULTRA with a new burst of cultural relevance.

Brief

We set out to remind everyone who loves the world’s fastest-growing sport — F1 racing — that joy is an essential component of the sport, and an active lifestyle in general.

Using real-time racing data, we created the first-ever real-vs.-virtual F1 race in partnership with Williams Racing and aired it on live TV. We put Logan Sargeant, a young F1 driver, on a real racetrack against AR avatars of his racing heroes when he was younger, driven by AI.

But why would Michelob ULTRA do this?

Because these retired icons — Mario Andretti, Jacques Villeneuve, Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell, Jenson Button, and Damon Hill — embodied the kind of joy that Logan became a driver to experience. Their joyful outlook offers an antidote to the win-at-all-costs mentality making F1 racing today so toxic for drivers, fans, and journalists alike.

And we did it all through AR, AI machine learning, and telemetry, using tech to quite literally change the game of F1 racing and create the first sporting event that spanned different dimensions of reality.

We first teased our one-of-a-kind F1 race at the United States Grand Prix in October 2023, and at premiere events in New York and Miami in early 2024. Then, the full program aired on AMC and BBC America in spring 2024, interspersed with stories of Logan’s journey as a driver, adding a personal narrative that no other race has offered.

This feat of innovation was made possible by AI, augmented reality, machine learning, and telemetry.

Logan raced in his car on a track at Silverstone, home of the British Grand Prix. But his digitized opponents appeared as AR avatars in his racing helmet, responding to his driving motions in real time, which were communicated as a data-based language via machine learning and AI. Viewers saw the avatars mapped onto the real-life racetrack using a Mo-Sys camera, often used in action movies.

Lap of Legends is still in its promotional phase. But the success of the promo shows another cultural relevance juggernaut in the making:

4.5 billion impressions and 19 million viewers across platforms

+1,650% month-over-month growth in organic search for Michelob ULTRA

+23% month-over-month growth in social reach for Michelob ULTRA

100% positive/neutral press coverage

And we’re making a lasting impact beyond the race.

The tech behind Lap of Legends makes AR devices more accurate and functional in fast-moving vehicles. This will make a crucial difference for ambulances during medical emergencies, disaster response teams during extreme weather events, and more.

Not to mention, we pioneered a new entertainment media format. Rather than advertising alongside sports, we created the sports event ourselves and other brands advertised alongside our event.

From live events to impossible technology, we continue to change the world with the joy of sports.