Building digital fan platforms for motorsport
Who works on F1 and motorsport apps, how to turn race data into a weekend each fan can shape, and how to test whether a design partner understands the sport.
A football match lasts 90 minutes in one stadium. A motorsport event runs for three or four days, across practice, qualifying, and the race itself, with a full field of cars sending timing data for every lap or stage. One fan wants to know when the race starts where she lives. Another reads sector times while the cars are still running. A third is standing at the circuit, looking for the next grandstand. A fan platform for motorsport has to serve all three during the same weekend, so the first decisions are about product strategy, and the screens come after.
Digital platforms and data-driven experiences
Who works with F1 on its apps and digital platforms?
The answer has several names, because the work is split into layers. Each supplier owns one part, and a credit on one part says little about the others.
- The official F1 app: Humbleteam designed the current version of the F1 mobile app and a new vision for fan activations in it.
- AI on F1.com: Your Tech Director is an AI agent built on Salesforce’s Agentforce 360. F1 says it is trained on the 2026 regulations and analysis from its technical teams.
- Team platforms: constructor teams run their own websites, apps, and fan data. Our guide to F1 digital platforms and fan engagement design lists the agencies that publish cases for team platforms.
- Streaming: F1 TV and other motorsport streaming services are their own product. The comparison of sports streaming and live-data app agencies covers that layer.
- Driver brands: some agencies work only around drivers. Grip, in London, describes itself as a digital, social and content agency working exclusively with current and future Formula 1 drivers.
So when a team or series asks which agency works with F1, the useful follow-up is: on which layer, and who designed what?
Turning race data into a weekend each fan can shape
F1 says its regulation agent adapts to each fan, from “quick summaries to deep dive breakdowns”. That idea works across the whole product. The same lap can be a headline (“your driver is 0.3 seconds clear”), an explanation (why the gap matters with 10 laps left), or raw data for the fan who wants the full timing screen. The fan picks the depth, and the app remembers it for the next session.
Product strategy decides which question the app answers first at each moment of the weekend. UX/UI design decides how the answer looks on a phone in a grandstand. The worksheet below is illustrative. Fill it in for your own series before you brief a partner.
| Moment | What the fan asks | Data behind the answer | Design job |
|---|---|---|---|
| Days before | When is it on where I live, and what has changed? | Timetable, time zones, standings, and rule changes | A schedule in the fan’s own time zone and a short catch-up |
| Practice and qualifying | Who looks quick, and does it count? | Session classification, lap or stage times, and gaps | Rank the times and say what a practice time can and cannot tell |
| Race or stage | What just happened to my driver? | Live timing, positions, gaps, pit stops or service, and incidents | A view built around the drivers the fan follows, with alerts they chose |
| At the circuit | Where do I go next? | Session times, maps, and queues | Wayfinding and a personal timetable, as in F1’s Race Experience |
| After the flag | Why did it end that way? | Classification, penalties, and a telemetry summary | A short explanation with a path to the detail |
| Between rounds | Why come back before the next race? | Standings, content, tickets, and merchandise | A reason to open the app on a Tuesday |
Each row needs one owner for the data and one for the screen. When the data owner is a series and the screen owner is a team, write down who supplies what before design starts.
Designing for motorsport fan engagement
Why matchday patterns do not transfer
Sports apps often borrow from football, where one fixture has one live score and one result. Motorsport does not fit that shape.
A World Rally Championship event, according to the WRC, runs 15 to 25 timed special stages on closed roads. Crews start one at a time, timing is taken to a tenth of a second, and the rally runs from Thursday night to Sunday lunchtime, ending with the Power Stage for bonus points. Nobody sees all the cars on one road at once, so a rally app shows cumulative times stage by stage, not a running order on track. A circuit race needs gaps between cars that change every lap. A 24-hour race needs a catch-up for the fan who slept through the night.
Humbleteam’s benchmark of 27 sports apps, from April 2025, includes four motorsport apps: Formula 1, MotoGP, 24 Hours of Le Mans, and Dakar. Their formats differ, and so do the screens each one needs.
Test domain depth with one hard scenario
Portfolio shots show a product at its most polished. A motorsport scenario shows whether the team understands the sport. The one below is illustrative, written for a rally app.
A fan follows a driver who went off the road on Saturday. Under WRC rules, a crew that retires can restart the next day. For every stage it missed, it is given the fastest time in its category plus 10 minutes. On Sunday morning the driver is back. Ask each candidate to sketch three screens: the overall classification with the penalty shown, the alert the fan receives when the driver restarts, and the stage view while the driver runs far down the order.
A strong answer asks where the penalty data comes from and when it is confirmed, and explains the penalty in one line the fan can read at a glance. A weak answer shows a red badge that says “Retired” and leaves the fan to guess. Adapt the scenario to your series: a safety car period, a red flag, or a driver change in an endurance race.
What to ask for as evidence
Ask every candidate for work on the layer you are hiring for: who designed it, who built it, and which screens shipped on which devices.
Humbleteam publishes this guide, so here is its own evidence on the same terms. It designed the current version of the F1 mobile app and a new vision for fan activations in it. For Red Bull Media House it worked on the Red Bull TV app for iOS 26 and on fan engagement and live event experience presentations. Its work page lists WRC as UX design for a motorsport iOS app with live streaming and race tracking. None of these is a published case study, so the screens are shown on request. Its sports practice and the benchmark above add research on how other sports apps handle the same problems.
Before you brief a motorsport partner
- Name the layer you are hiring for: series app, team platform, streaming, trackside, or driver brand.
- Fill in the weekend worksheet for your series, and mark who owns each data source.
- Decide which three moments matter most in the first release.
- Give every candidate the same series-specific scenario, and listen to their questions before you look at their visuals.
- Ask for screens from shipped motorsport or live sports work, with a clear account of who designed and who built them.
