McLaren Racing Unveils Crypto-Inspired Car Livery Ahead of Singapore GP

CoinDesk · McLaren

Formula One (F1) team McLaren Racing unveiled a crypto-inspired look for its racing cars at an event in Singapore on Tuesday, ahead of next week’s Grand Prix held in the city.

The move is part of a planned partnership with the crypto exchange OKX. The livery will feature on McLaren’s MCL36 F1 cars at the 2022 Singapore Grand Prix and 2022 Japanese Grand Prix. These races have returned to Asia for the first time since 2019.

The livery features McLaren’s Fluro Papaya colorway with neon pink embellishments and dynamic, cyberpunk-inspired engine illustrations. McLaren told CoinDesk that the design represented the emergence of new technologies from the region, such as cryptocurrencies and the broader Web3 sector.

"It was incredibly fun for us and McLaren to co-design the livery for Asia,” said OKX Chief Marketing Officer Haider Rafique. “This new livery signals the arrival of bold new technology. The cyberpunk design we created celebrates the influence of Web3 on popular culture.”

OKX added it would guide McLaren in revolutionizing the racing team’s digital collectible and metaverse strategy. In 2021, McLaren Racing said it planned to build a non-fungible token (NFT) platform on the Tezos blockchain. Elsewhere, McLaren’s automotive unit said earlier this year it would create and mint non-fungible tokens of its luxury supercars in partnership with metaverse infrastructure platform InfiniteWorld.