Why a long-held tenet of F1 sponsorship is beginning to change

F1 cars have long been described as mobile billboards, an advertising platform which just happens to circulate at 200mph in front of a global TV audience. For six decades sponsors and teams have negotiated and argued over which spaces on a car, driver or team are best – from sidepods to engine covers, rear wing endplates to wing mirrors and all points in between.

For a sport dedicated to movement, sponsors have had to inhabit a rather static environment, one that has changed little since those early days of oil and tobacco sponsors in the 1960s.

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Enter Mark Turner, founder and CEO of Seamless Digital, a Towcester-based technology company which has pioneered the use of lightweight, low-energy screens which enable sponsors and their messages to appear, disappear or change at will. It has worked with McLaren since 2022 and, after successful testing, will be used by AlphaTauri during the new season.

It’s a fascinating development if you’re into that sort of thing, which the more than 300 companies supporting F1’s 10 teams most certainly are.

“The idea is to find a way of monetising an F1 car from an engineering standpoint,” says the former Jordan GP vehicle science technician who also founded Silverstone Paint Technology in 2008. “We’re a company made up of fans, to be honest, we want to use our capabilities to help teams not only make the cars go faster but also unlock ways to raise more money.”

Silverstone Paint Technology has become a key supplier to 70% of the Formula 1 grid, developing lightweight paints, coatings and composite solutions to ensure teams can offer their sponsors the branding they want while keeping weight under control.

In many ways Seamless Digital was a natural next step for Turner and his team, launching into the world of MDOOH – Mobile Digital Out of Home – and applying it to F1. If you’ve seen a roadside billboard suddenly transform into a digital screen, or caught sight of the way entire buildings are now used as enormous, ever-changing screens in cities such as Las Vegas, you’ll already know how impactful it can be.

Photo by: McLaren

McLaren first tried out digital advert screens created by Seamless Digital back in 2022

“We first worked with Manor Racing on the concept as they had a potential title sponsor in the pipeline, but it never materialised,” recalls Turner. “We had observed the way Google doesn’t go for one big advertiser but instead sells smaller advertising slots, and that seemed to be a way of adding value to media exposure on F1 cars.”

A prototype display was built and presented to Formula One Management, demonstrating how screens could be used to not only display sponsor brand names, but specific messaging, focusing on certain moments during a race or over the course of a weekend. The benefit is clear: teams and sponsors can work to tailor messaging, adding an entirely new dynamic to the business of communicating with race-goers and viewers.

“We want to offer flexibility to the commercial teams, potentially selling space lap by lap or a moment such as a team’s pitstop. The other option to explore is where a team sponsor such as Unilever, one of McLaren’s partners, could have sub-brands appear, or specific categories
of products depending on what’s happening.”

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A champagne brand could appear on the car when the driver has scored a podium finish, or a water brand each time the driver hydrates during the race. The degree of personalisation is almost endless, as well as instantaneous.

Turner’s team of 15 staff are also working on applying the displays to helmets, with hardware weighing as little as 18 grams, while other potential applications in sport include NFL helmets, cricket bats and even MotoGP leathers

The technology has to meet the demands of race teams, which typically dislike anything that adds weight or consumes power, and to meet the strict compliance of organisations such as Ofcom, the UK’s communications regulator. Branding which covers more than 25% of a broadcaster’s screen is not permitted, for example.

“If there was no weight issue we could provide a display on an engine cover or nose cone,” says Turner. “That’s one of the reasons teams are depleting the use of colours on cars as the lightest paint liveries are now 1kg, the heavier ones around 3kgs. The displays we currently use are less than 100 grams and our primary focus has been the cockpit area as on-board shots account for around 20% of media value.”

Turner’s team of 15 staff are also working on applying the displays to helmets, with hardware weighing as little as 18 grams, while other potential applications in sport include NFL helmets, cricket bats and even MotoGP leathers. 

In F1 the system is pre-programmed, since the rules forbid remote transmission of data to the cars, but who knows what the future may hold. A real-time social media post on your favourite driver’s car? Start bidding.

Photo by: Jake Grant / Motorsport Images

F1 is no stranger to display sponsorship and branding - but lightweight digital screens could change the game