McLaren Racing, Cisco Partner to Drive Hybrid Sporting Experiences

McLaren Racing and Cisco have announced a multiyear global partnership expanding Cisco’s role with the Formula 1 Team to become an Official Technology Partner.

Through the partnership, the two organizations will leverage Cisco’s industry-leading solutions, innovation and expertise to enhance McLaren’s technological infrastructure on race day and at the team's headquarters, as well as to connect with fans around the world.

With the expanded relationship, McLaren will have Cisco's full portfolio of solutions at their disposal – across enterprise networking, Wi-Fi, digital signage, collaboration and more.

Cisco’s decade-long leadership in developing purpose-built, innovative solutions in the sports and entertainment field will aid McLaren in its pursuit of the competitive edge needed to drive performance in a sport as lightening-fast as Formula 1.

“Cisco has been an incredible partner to McLaren Racing, and we are delighted to extend and grow this relationship long-term,” said Claire Cronin, Chief Marketing Officer, McLaren Racing. “Webex technology is embedded throughout our team’s operations, helping us be connected and agile with our people who operate at race pace around the globe. As we enter a new chapter of our partnership, we will continue to drive innovation with an expansion of Cisco’s capabilities available to us.”

As part of the partnership, Cisco will collaborate with McLaren to explore and pilot new and emerging technologies, such as working towards upgrading their raceday wireless deployment to Wi-Fi 6E (Extended), to ensure fast and reliable communications among all team members. Wi-Fi 6E offers more than twice the bandwidth of Wi-Fi 6, the current standard solution, and is purpose-built to deliver reliable, secure and fast connectivity in flexible, remote locations. In addition, Cisco and McLaren will continue to work together to develop the networking technology infrastructure at the team’s headquarters in Surrey – the McLaren Technology Centre. Cisco’s hybrid network solutions and cloud-based service DNA Spaces will allow the organization to optimize productivity.

“As a marquee team in one of the fastest-growing sports in popularity globally, we are proud to expand our relationship with McLaren Racing and bring to bear our full portfolio of technology and talent to help the team achieve even greater success,” said Carrie Palin, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at Cisco. “McLaren Racing shares our unceasing commitment to innovation, and we believe that together we can push the boundaries of what’s possible in order to develop the most connected F1 team in history.”

Today’s announcement builds upon an existing relationship between McLaren Racing and Webex by Cisco, the Official Collaboration Partner of the F1 team. Over the past year, Webex’s industry-leading suite of cloud-based collaboration tools and emerging technology solutions, like Webex Hologram, have enabled McLaren to overcome geographical boundaries to create virtual experiences that bring fans and partners even closer to the action and enable immersive co-creation between design engineers, drivers and crews from tracks around the world. The expanded partnership will see McLaren Racing continue to leverage Webex to implement flexible and secure hybrid working environments, while also creating even more opportunities for fans around the world to connect with the team throughout the 2022 Formula 1 season.

For more than a decade, Cisco’s sports and entertainment solutions and expertise have been relied upon by hundreds of industry-leading venues, teams, events and organizations around the world, including SoFi Stadium, the Olympic and Paralympic Games, City Football Group, Riot Games, the National Football League and many more.