Lap of Legends raised the bar for digital craft in all forms. From augmented reality to personal storytelling, we combined the human and digital worlds to create something unlike anything ever shown on TV.

Michelob ULTRA used AR to put a young F1 racing driver facing unimaginable pressure to win on a real-life race track against virtual avatars of his childhood racing heroes. This first-of-its-kind high-tech race dovetailed with a documentary-style story of our racer’s personal life.

By creating something so innovative, yet deeply human, we forged a new frontier in entertainment for brands, storytellers, platforms, and fans.

Logan Sargeant is 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.

He 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.’”

He’s not the only one facing debilitating pressure to keep his place in F1. Top drivers like Lewis Hamilton and Lando Norris have publicly opened up about their struggles with the high-stakes intensity of racing culture.

And unfortunately, the intensity extends beyond the drivers themselves. Their crew members, their fans, and the journalists who cover them all now understand that each race feels like a fight to stay alive in the racing world. The competition has become more existential.

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.

Michelob ULTRA is a low-calorie beer that believes in joy as an essential component of an active lifestyle. You should be able to be physically active AND enjoy a beer afterward.

Our brand platform, “It’s Only Worth It If You Enjoy It,” has brought this belief to life in groundbreaking and culturally relevant ways 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 with millions of marketing dollars spent each year, competition never ends in the beer category.

So, to continue growing our sales, we needed to remind athletes and fans of the world’s fastest-growing sport — F1 racing — that joy is an essential component of an active lifestyle.

We designed Lap of Legends, the first-ever real-vs.-virtual F1 race, to remind the world of a crucial truth: the intensity of racing should be enjoyable, not overpowering.

We put Logan Sargeant, a Williams Racing driver, in a real car on a real track against virtual avatars of the F1 legends who inspired his love of racing. These retired racers’ joy served as an inspiring counterbalance to the hyper-competitive, pressure of F1 today.

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.

By changing the game itself, we changed the way everyone enjoys the game.

We created the first-ever real-vs.-virtual F1 race, using artificial intelligence, augmented reality, machine learning, and telemetry.

Logan raced in his car on a track — like he normally would — at Silverstone, home of the British Grand Prix. But his digitized opponents appeared as augmented reality avatars in his racing helmet, responding to his driving motions in real time with the help of machine learning and 45 years of historical racing data that we manually programmed into their avatars. This technology is so precise that F1 teams have started using it themselves to model and test new racing strategies.

Fans first caught a glimpse of Lap of Legends 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 level of personal narrative that no other race has offered. Soon, the full program featuring the race and the human story behind it will also be available to stream on-demand via AMC, BBC America, and Roku.

All breaking the boundaries of sports and technology to rekindle the true joy of F1.