How do you do something different in a sport renowned for innovation and invention? On and off the track, Formula E has pushed the boundaries of what is physically possible since its inception in 2014.

So, when we decided to produce a one-off livery for our home race as part of our McLaren60 celebrations, it had to be something that hadn’t ever been done before. And in a motor racing world where limited edition liveries are becoming increasingly popular, that would prove a challenging feat.

Following a few early discussions, AI quickly became the answer. We knew that it was only a matter of time before a team in one of the many racing series around the world produced an AI-designed livery, and the thought of being the first appealed to both McLaren and NEOM. As did the idea of doing it in the right way, by centring the project around human values and making sure that it had a human touch to it. It would need to tap into our brand and our beliefs, we couldn’t just type “Create a limited edition NEOM McLaren Formula E Team livery” into a text-based AI and slap it onto the car.

Well, we could have… But that would have gone against the spirit of what we wanted to accomplish.

 

Our #LondonEPrix livery has landed!

Excited to see it on track, McLaren fans? 😍#NEOMxMcLaren pic.twitter.com/zmaeBXK9la

— NEOM McLaren FE (@McLarenFE) July 26, 2023

To understand how we’ve achieved this, we need to explain why. At its core, this project is intrinsically linked to our 60th anniversary, McLaren60 is more than just a year-long look back at our history, it’s about how our past successes are fuelling our future. So many of our greatest achievements wouldn’t have been possible without innovation and invention, and that forward-thinking way of working can’t ever stop. Within McLaren60, nothing represents a new chapter better than our entry into electric racing.

Our Formula E title partner, NEOM has innovation at its core, so this project aligned perfectly. We asked our drivers, Jake and René, for their detailed visions of the future, along with four NEOM Graduates, who are due to join the NEOM McLaren Electric Racing Talent Programme later this year.

The visions were deeply personal to each person and submitted in confidence. The specific wording will remain private, but with the help of AI, we turned them into the world’s first livery designed using generative artificial intelligence.

Although its implementation was by no means easy, the process reads surprisingly simple. Using AI tools, we inputted the six visions into a text-to-text AI, where we asked for prompts for an image AI. These prompts were then put into a text-to-image AI, which produced six individual artworks, one per vision, that were then combined into one single piece of artwork by an image-to-image AI.

Specific terminology, including ‘papaya’, was used throughout the process to ensure that our traditional colours and themes were running through the livery. It was in the final stages of the process that instructions were entered into the AI to shape the artwork around the NEOM McLaren Formula E car, the Nissan E-4ORCE 04. Our team then worked with NEOM on the finer details, which included changing the regular blue elements of the car to papaya and adding our McLaren60 logo.

“We wanted the design to reflect the car's shape by making the livery look sleek and fast, like an arrow,” said Stu Weston, Senior Manager, Design – Electric Racing. “The AI artwork has a similar graphic language, with angled lines all moving forwards, and a strong sensation of speed. We positioned the artwork into the papaya panels on the car to create the main body of the livery.”

Alex Glancy, Head of Partnership Planning, added: “It was important for many reasons that our car was still recognisable as a McLaren Racing car, from a brand perspective, from a racing point of view and from a historical point of view. We still wanted it to feel like one of our cars at heart, and by combining AI and that human touch, we were able to achieve that.

“For us, this is a story about human imagination and technology coming together. We didn’t want to do an AI car for the sake of doing something with AI. This is AI’s interpretation of human hopes and visions. We started this process by talking about our hopes for the future and then used technology to turn them into artwork. The fact this has humanity at the heart of it is really important to us.”

The four students are from the NEOM Graduate Opportunities in Work (GrOW) Programme, which provides on-the-job experience working on NEOM’s ambitious projects alongside their brightest minds.

By submitting their visions for the future, the four NEOM graduates played a key role in the process and will continue their learning by joining our Talent Programme later this year, for a 12-month placement with our racing team.

The NEOM McLaren Electric Racing Talent Programme will welcome a number of graduates from NEOM to work with the McLaren team in the UK over the next few years. The aim is to develop talent through an immersive experience within a world-renowned high-performance organisation, taking key learnings back to their respective sectors at NEOM.

The limited-edition AI-designed livery will appear on our car for our first home race in Formula E, at the upcoming London E-Prix double-header, which will also mark the conclusion of our first season in the all-electric series.