McLaren Formula 1 Team on AI and speed at Refresh Virtual Summit
In a fireside chat at Freshworks’ global event, Dan Keyworth shared how the racing team uses AI, automation, and Freshservice to stay competitive both on the track and behind the scenes
If there’s any industry that cares as much about efficiencies as it does speed, it might be Formula 1 racing. When races are won in milliseconds, any inefficiency slows things down. Which is why Freshworks capped its recent day-long Virtual Summit with a conversation with a customer who knows something about that: Dan Keyworth, McLaren Racing’s director of business technology.
Keyworth joined Freshworks Chief Customer and Marketing Officer Mika Yamamoto for a discussion about how technology helps power performance both on the racetrack and behind the scenes. More than 6,000 attendees joined the global livestream, which is now available for on-demand viewing here.
Making technology a strategic pillar
Keyworth, who has spent eight years at McLaren, described how IT has evolved from a back-office function to a competitive advantage.
"Technology is considered a strategic pillar of the organization," he said. "If you look at the sport, you've got the technical, financial, and sporting regulations. For me, the kind of fourth battleground between the teams is technology."
That shift has become more critical as Formula 1 operates under a cost cap that limits spending.
"You are constrained by the amount of dollars that you can spend to develop your car. Therefore, you need to find ways to do that more efficiently," Keyworth explained. "And the only way to do that is really to deploy technology."
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AI and automation in IT
The McLaren Formula 1 Team uses Freshservice for IT service management, choosing the platform for what Keyworth called its focus on "delivering uncomplicated IT services." The team's approach emphasizes removing friction from the employee experience.
"We want to make sure that technology like AI is playing a really key role and that we're freeing up resources to actually add value back into the business,” Keyworth said, “kind of take the laborious out of their day-to-day roles."
He noted that the partnership with Freshworks aims to automate repetitive tasks that drain job satisfaction.
The team plans to continue leveraging Freddy AI across IT service management processes.
Cultural alignment and partnership
When evaluating technology partners, the McLaren Formula 1 Team looks beyond product capabilities to cultural fit.
"We've got to be able to achieve great things together, but there's also got to be a cultural alignment that we work super close to each other, not just a supplier-customer relationship," Keyworth said.
The focus on partnership reflects McLaren's broader philosophy: Technology must serve clear business objectives.
"We need to see some kind of tangible link to on-track performance," Keyworth said. "For every pound we spend on the car, we spend a pound on technology."
