McLaren Formula 1 Team enhances performance with enterprise-grade ITSM

When the McLaren Formula 1 competes at 24 races across the globe each season, every millisecond counts—on and off the track. As the team celebrates back-to-back Constructors' Championships in 2024 and 2025, the IT organization plays a critical role in ensuring flawless execution from the pit lane to mission control.

Just two trackside IT personnel support race-day operations. With a lean team managing global technology infrastructure, McLaren needed an ITSM platform that could deliver reliability without complexity. They deployed Freshservice to create consistent, traceable workflows for critical race-weekend operational checks and employee lifecycle management.

"IT is becoming more of a strategic player in the landscape of Formula 1," says Dan Keyworth, director of business technology at McLaren Racing. "Technology is just going to become an even bigger strength for all the teams as well."

The company 

The McLaren Formula 1 Team, part of McLaren Racing that was founded in 1963, competes in the FIA Formula 1 World Championship with drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri. The team won consecutive Constructors' Championships in 2024 and 2025, marking their return to the top of the sport. The team employs more than 1,000 people.

The challenge 

Formula 1 operates at the extreme edge of performance, which means the McLaren Formula 1 Team’s IT team faces a unique challenge: delivering enterprise-grade technology services for a globally distributed operation that rebuilds itself in a new location every week during the racing season.

"When we go to every race, we get there about a week in advance, and we're given this empty shell and have to build a garage from scratch," explains Keyworth. "We've got to run three and a half kilometers of cabling, we've got to set up all of the things for the engineers. The two cars come into the garage, but then the IT infrastructure in the garage is actually not very intelligent until we plug in the tech. That’s an incredible moment because as soon as the technology lights up, the whole garage comes to life."

The team manages six complete sets of equipment rotating through 24 race locations annually. Every monitor, data link, and communication system must perform flawlessly. With 300 sensors streaming real-time data from each race car and more than 30 people in mission control analyzing every decision, technology uptime isn't optional, it's existential.

Operating with a lean IT team, the McLaren F1 Team needed a platform that could:

• Provide visibility and accountability for recurring race-weekend system checks

• Support employee onboarding and offboarding workflows as the team scales

• Deliver consistency without requiring extensive IT resources to maintain

"There's a huge reliance on us, and I think what we've woken up to is that technology is always going to be this thing in the organization that everyone's going to rely on in the future to remain competitive," Keyworth says.

The solution

The McLaren F1 Team selected Freshservice for its intuitive interface and focus on delivering uncomplicated IT services, crucial for a team where every team member's focus must remain on performance.

"Freshworks, and Freshservice in particular, is super focused on delivering uncomplicated IT services," says Keyworth. "My view is that it always has to be a frictionless exercise and that people need to enjoy consuming IT services and also that it just works." The team implemented Freshservice to orchestrate mission-critical workflows, including:

Race-weekend operational checks: IT raises recurring tickets before each event to verify all systems, from monitors and microphones in the control room to data links and communication equipment. This creates a documented trail of readiness that the team can rely on when the pressure is highest.

Employee lifecycle management: The platform supports onboarding and offboarding workflows, currently semiautomated with plans to integrate fully with Workday. This provides a foundation for scaling IT service delivery as the team grows.

Freshservice provides the stability and scalability McLaren needs as they pursue championships on the grid. 

Impact

While the McLaren F1 Team's Freshservice adoption journey continues, the platform has established a foundation for operational confidence that matters in a sport decided by milliseconds.

The team now has:

• Systematic race-weekend readiness: Documented operational checks ensure nothing is left to chance before each event

• Cross-functional visibility: Teams across aerodynamics, engineering, and operations can track requests and coordinate responses

• Scalable service delivery: A platform that can grow with the team's ambitions without requiring proportional IT staff increases

"I understand the complexities that go behind the sport, not just two cars on track. There is a huge amount of people that are pulling in the same direction," says Keyworth.

As McLaren continues to mature their ITSM practices, Freshservice provides a reliable foundation for a team where performance is everything.