McLaren -The Race 1.0b

Winning Hearts and Minds with Raw Data

Long before Drive to Survive turned Formula One into a Netflix reality show, we were handed a brief from the McLaren racing team.

Even then, the sport attracted a huge global audience. But unlike most other sports, relatively few viewers supported a specific team. Sure, millions watched Formula One. Just not many cared who won.

Which was a problem.

Because the more fans a team had, the more valuable it became to sponsors. And the more sponsorship money it attracted, the more a team could invest in making its cars go faster.

So our challenge was simple enough. Turn impartial Formula One viewers into dedicated McLaren fans.

Formula One fans may not always be loyal to a particular team or driver. But they are obsessed with the technical details. Give them tyre strategy, radio chatter, G-force data or brake temperatures, and they are all in.

So we wondered what might happen if McLaren became the one team willing to give it to them.

Surely that would earn a little loyalty.

So began The Race 1.0b, a real-time digital companion offering fans a level of behind-the-scenes access they could not get from the live broadcast.

Understandably, there was some hesitation. Formula One is a sport measured in fractions of a second, so teams are generally not keen to share potentially useful information on the internet.

But we convinced McLaren that the benefits were worth the risk.

As each race unfolded, fans could follow raw telemetry, live updates and insights from the cars, drivers and pit crew. And because all of it came directly from McLaren, viewers were no longer simply watching the race. They were seeing it through McLaren’s eyes.

One race at a time, neutral viewers began edging towards McLaren fandom. Admittedly having Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button behind the wheel also helped.