Why did a Formula 1 team build a playroom in the middle of its factory?

Ah, formula 1. You know how in rush. The screeching engines, the crack of the fireball, the look into your rival’s eyes with piercing intensity that borders on obsession.

It’s still there, though a hell of a lot has changed since then. Security has improved (although crashes are still dangerous), homoerotic tales of rivalries have improved a few levels, if at all. Although the hybrid systems have given the cars a slightly different tone, they are still howling along the circuits at impossible speed.

The technology in Formula 1 is ridiculous, out of this world. Research centers that develop the cars are like the Stark Tower, entire departments that create tiny pieces of what you see on the track. When a small number of F1 engineers turned their attention to manufacturing a new ventilator during the 2020 lockdown, it took them just ten days to design and a month to manufacture 10,000.

Lando Norris Credit: Getty Images / Lars Baron

You might be surprised, therefore, that McLaren decided to use part of their factory, the high-tech base known as the MTC, for a headroom.

They announced McLaren Shadow Studio, a special room outfitted with Alienware and Logitech gear so the McLaren esports team can train, work and create content.

Oh yeah. McLaren has an esports team. Unlike the way Honda sponsors Liquid, it’s their own thing, from F1 games to things like World’s Fastest Gamer, making sim racers drive real cars.

And it’s not just a side effect of their real-world racing. The actual McLaren F1 driver Lando Norris is an avid sim racer and has explained how the McLaren Shadow Studio came about. “Obviously it started a while ago, everything since McLaren Shadow started, so it took a while to develop.

F1 2021. Credit: Codemasters

“I think it’s just cool to see how it grows and how it gets more focused and more people work there and stuff like that. Just the growth of the entire esports sector, both in general and at McLaren in particular.

“I think we were the first Formula 1 team that really put a lot of effort into it, and the resources and things like that made me very happy because I grew up with them massively. I care and I love to participate and try to help with it. “

Not only is Norris a passive rep for McLaren’s esports side, he really likes it. “Whatever happens now, I’ll say I’ll break or whatever, but I just have to go in there [to the McLaren Shadow Studio] and hop in the simulator for a while.

Mclaren’s Playroom Credit: Mclaren

“It is good to see that they are trying harder and trying to expand it. I try to help the F1 esports drivers when they get in. You can step on it too, so it’s cool. “

F1 Esports, the main championship competition, has grown astronomically since its launch in 2017. Back then it was a pretty hastily put together competition that used the officially licensed Codemasters F1 game and a simple qualifying format. Now it has one of the largest prize pools in sim racing ($ 750,000) and attracts millions of viewers.

Norris knows the parallels between actual driving at 340 kilometers per hour and virtual driving better than anyone. “I think most of the actions you take in a real racing car are the same as you would in a simulator.

“You still have to turn a steering wheel or step on the pedals. And the techniques of everything are exactly the same. And I think the cool thing about racing is that you can do a lot of these things in a very similar way to actually driving a car.

F1 2021. Credit: Codemasters

“It is very difficult to simulate the kicking of a football for a game. It’s basically just impossible. So it makes up for the fact that we can’t just get a racing car like soccer players, we just get a soccer ball and train anywhere they want, in your garden, in a field – we can’t do this in racing, but if we practice something, the accuracy and correlation with reality is very advanced. “

Like all F1 drivers, and although his hobbies are pretty clearly desk based, Norris has to be ridiculously fit to actually do the IRL job. But sim racing offers a much softer physical option, which is great news for any of us who haven’t spent the pandemic ridiculing ourselves but still assume that if we have one, we might try well Have a chance in a racing car.

“There are nowhere near as many physical characteristics in driving a car. You can just sit at home and have fun, so it’s different, ”he explained.

“There are things that are very different and difficult to compare. The things I always say are g-force, fear and costs, if you could somehow have them in the simulator, I would come very, very close to them. And the feeling you would get [would be] very similar.

“But because you don’t have those three things, don’t be afraid to just hit a wall and you can just hit the reset button – that’s not possible in a real racing car.”
McLaren Shadow Studio isn’t just about sim racing, however. The strangely boring word “content” promises something far more exciting than it sounds; an F1 team that embraces streaming and video in a way that most of them – and the sport itself – are just waking up.

There’s a reason it’s McLaren, and it has a lot to do with Lando himself.

F1 2021. Credit: Codemasters

At just 21 years of age and in his third season in F1, Norris is, to put it mildly, completely done this year. McLaren sometimes has the third fastest car on the track behind Red Bull and Mercedes, but with both teams each having two drivers, it’s amazing that Norris is currently third in the drivers’ championship. He is only beaten by CoD fan Lewis Hamilton and his sim racer colleague Max Verstappen, which brings the players to the very top.

That might sound like enough to get on with it, but Norris has turned his Twitch streaming hobby into a sideline and has become CEO of his own content team, Quadrant. Drivers are supposed to guide their teams, but it’s more about how to set up the front wing of their car, not how to reach a whole new audience.

“I did it before I had to, it’s not a job, for me it’s not something I have to do,” says Norris of his passion for making things.

“I can stop streaming at any time. It is not part of being a Formula 1 driver. It’s something I want to do separately. So I grew up playing games and playing against my brother and sisters and I really enjoy it.

“It’s like I’m giving these cool opportunities to people that I’m fortunate enough to have as part of Quadrant, and we’re trying to expand and get more people and let them get involved. They all came to Silverstone last weekend, which is pretty great. “