Lap of Legends combined AR and AI in unprecedented ways to create an interdimensional F1 racing event.

Logan Sargeant, a young driver facing unimaginable career pressure, competed against AR avatars of his childhood racing heroes, driven by AI .This was the first-ever real-vs.-virtual F1 race.

We designed this first-of-its-kind event to remind the F1 community that the intensity of racing should be enjoyable, not overpowering.

The retired icons of F1 knew the joy of the sport best, so we used their virtual racing avatars as timely, joyous reminders in a high-pressure racing world.

Today, the world’s fastest-growing sport is F1. But as the sport grows, it’s becoming so pressure-packed and hyper-competitive that its “drive to survive” stakes are overshadowing the joy of racing.

Especially for racers like 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.

As the pressure gets more daunting, more drivers are opening up about their struggles with the high-stakes intensity of racing culture. The fans and media feel this undercurrent of negativity in F1, too, viewing each race as an existential battle to keep a spot in the league.

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.

Situation

Competition never ends in the beer category. Millions of dollars get spent each year to cut through the noise. To grow sales and market share, you need to consistently be top-of-mind in culture.

Objective

So, with cultural relevance as our key objective, we set out to address another pressing issue in sports culture: the overwhelming pressure that F1 drivers face today.

Brief

So, as the official beer partner of Williams Racing, 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 of an active lifestyle in general.

Using our F1 racing partnership, we reframed the way in which the world thinks about the joy of an active lifestyle, especially the joy of racing.

F1 fans had seen the sport take a serious turn from a joyous one to a pressure-packed one. 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. And interviews with drivers like Lewis Hamilton, Logan Sargeant, and Lando Norris showed that the pressure to win had reached a fever pitch.

Knowing that this win-or-get-fired narrative had become so pervasive in TV shows about F1, we decided to lean into TV as a medium of choice.

In the first-ever real-vs.-virtual car race — featuring AR avatars of racing legends like Mario Andretti, Jacques Villeneuve, Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell, Jenson Button, and Damon Hill, driven by AI — Logan Sargeant, a young F1 driver, raced his F1 heroes from his youth.

This historic race aired live on TV, like a traditional F1 race.

Reminding fans and drivers of the joy that got them into F1 in the first place; a joy that is more powerful than the win-or-retire mentality making F1 racing so toxic today 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.

Implementation

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 and AI. Viewers saw the avatars mapped onto the real-life racetrack using a Mo-Sys camera, often used in action movies.

Placement

We teased Lap of Legends at the United States Grand Prix in October 2023, and at premiere events in early 2024. Then, the full program aired on AMC and BBC America in spring 2024, interspersed with stories of Logan’s personal journey.

Scale

This was a TV show that other brands ran ads inside of. We’ve opened a new realm of possibility in the worlds of entertainment and media format for brands to use.

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.