F1 is back for 2023 and Mclaren is using new digital displays on the car

After what felt like an incredibly long off-season, Formula 1 is back this weekend, racing at Bahrain. While the new 2023 cars were unveiled over the past month, Mclaren kept a little something extra up its sleeve.

New on their 2023 spec car, the MCL60, are two digital displays that sit adjacent to the driver. These digital displays are new technology and are similar to an e-ink display which means they consume a very small amount of power, but allow the team to update the sponsor’s logos on the car.

One of Mclaren’s major sponsor’s this year is Google Chrome and in the TikTok video shared recently by the team, we can see the displays change between the Chrome logo and the hashtag #chrome.

In relation to the position of these displays, it may seem like a strange choice, given the top-down positions next to the driver’s head are really not visible to the crowd at the track. These appear to target specifically the on-board view of the car, available to the millions who watch the sport remotely.

The video states that these weigh just 190 grams, which is tiny, but it’s not clear if that’s in aggregate or 190 per side.

With the delta between cars and teams incredibly close in F1, weight differences can account for tenths on track, enough to see you fall from mid-pack to the back in a heartbeat. While this would weigh less than the driver’s drink bottle, it is an interesting trade-off for what is potentially a platform that could extract more sponsored revenue.

Sections of each Formula One car are effectively sold to sponsors, but this technique of being able to transition through multiple sponsors could unlock more revenue by rotating through multiple different sponsors, assuming they all play nice together.

So far we’ve only seen it used for the same sponsor, but there’s no doubt this tech could rotate through sponsor logos, similar to what we see on the interior displays of our local Supercars category. This also helps if a team is struggling to find large sponsors, allowing smaller companies to buy a slice of time, rather than a place on the livery for the whole season.

Let us know in the comments if you think this is a good idea, something other teams should copy?

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