Real-time data made Lap of Legends such a transformative, boundary-breaking feat of interdimensional brilliance.

It fueled the world’s first-ever real-vs.-virtual F1 race, live on TV. Logan Sargeant drove his car on the iconic Silverstone Circuit in a race against AR avatars of his childhood racing heroes who taught him the joy of racing. We conveyed Logan’s physical movements to the virtual avatars via real-time data, giving the avatars the data that then informed their driving responses.

All to change the game once again and remind the world that sports is about enjoyment.

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.

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.

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.

It became clear that the world of F1 had lost its sense of perspective about racing. The lighthearted racing eras of drivers like Mario Andretti had taken a backseat to this new pressure-packed era.

Qualitative and ethnographic data proved that F1 had taken a serious turn from a joyous sport to a pressure-packed one. Interviews with drivers like Lewis Hamilton, Logan Sargeant, and Lando Norris showed that the pressure to win had reached a fever pitch, Not to mention, the proliferation of shows like Drive to Survive has also reinforced the notion in culture that F1 should be high-octane and cutthroat all the time.

So, we used our F1 partnership with Williams Racing to reframe the way in which the world thinks about the joy of an active lifestyle.

This feat of innovation was made possible by AI, 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, which were communicated as a data-based language via machine learning, AI, and 45 years of historical racing data as context for each automated racing decision. Our technology is so precise and true to racing physics that F1 teams have started using it themselves to model and test new racing strategies.

Fans saw us break the boundaries of sports in a sneak preview at the United States Grand Prix, at premieres in theaters around the U.S., live on AMC and BBC America, and via on-demand streaming with partners like AMC, BBC America, and Roku.

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

+1650% 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.