Pitstop Challenge
View the case- Brand
- Renault
- Year
- 2017
- Objective
- Product Launch
- Industry
- Automotive
- Mechanic
- Racing & Sports
- Platform
- AR & VR
- Agency
- We Are Social
- With
- Backlight
Objective
Renault Sport needed to announce its return to Formula 1 and give real meaning to its new tagline #EnterTheZone — the state of total focus a race team operates in. The goal was to let ordinary fans on the track and show floor feel that state firsthand rather than just watch a car go by, and to prove that VR could be a shared, social experience rather than a solo headset trip.
Solution
Four players strap into HTC Vive headsets with MSI backpack PCs and step into the same tracking space as Renault Sport pit mechanics, seeing each other as teammates in team overalls inside a shared 360° paddock with the race running around them. The session runs in three stages: a quick tutorial on the controls, a practice pit stop, then a final live run where time slows down as the player enters "the Zone" and changes the car's wheels as fast as possible. Controls are kept deliberately simple, so anyone can walk up and play without prior VR experience. Once the tyres are changed, the run ends and the group steps out together, having done the job as a team rather than solo.
Results
More than 800 people had completed the experience at major international race circuits as of the 2017 season, with rollout continuing across the F1 calendar.
- 1
A group of exactly four players signs up together; solo play is not possible. Each is fitted with a VR headset, a backpack computer, and handheld controllers, allowing free movement around the space.
- 2
Together the four share one tracked virtual paddock and see each other as teammate avatars dressed as Renault Sport pit crew. Around them unfolds a 360° Formula 1 world, complete with grandstands, an ongoing race, and the pit lane.
- 3
A training phase introduces each player's assigned role and the hand gestures used to grip, remove, and refit a wheel.
- 4
In the core challenge, a Renault F1 car pulls into the pits and the four players must strip and change its wheels against the clock. Each player owns one wheel and must stay in sync with the others, since the car only leaves once every player has finished.
- 5
A closing phase called "the Zone" slows time around the player, turning the same wheel-change actions into a deliberate, high-precision sequence.
- 6
The session ends with the team's combined pit-stop time revealed, framed as a race against the record for changing F1 wheels.
