Williams Racing F1 · Piccadilly Lights

00 · Context

The brief is not about awareness.
It's about reframing.

Williams Racing are one of the most recognised names in Formula 1 — seven Constructors' Championships, a name everyone knows. That's the problem. Awareness isn't the gap. The gap is faith.

People love Williams the way you love an underdog: with warmth, without expectation. We have a single 10-minute slot on Piccadilly Lights — London's largest screen — to change that. Not to remind people who Williams are. To make them feel what Williams are.

The screen features DeepScreen technology: audience sensing, live data integration, reactive formats. The format is anamorphic — objects can appear to break the flat plane and exist in real space. The fan zone beneath the screen is part of the canvas.

10Minute slot

783m²Screen area

True 4K5,490 × 2,160px

01 · Concept

The Visor
Mirror

You're not watching the driver.
The driver is watching you.

Insight

Williams has a warmth problem, not an awareness problem. The relationship is one-directional — fans watch the team, but the team never looks back. The driver's visor is one of the most iconic images in Formula 1: a closed, reflective surface that shows the world but reveals nothing inside. Flip that. Make the visor show the crowd back to themselves.

Concept

The anamorphic screen renders a giant Williams F1 helmet, visor down. Using a live camera feed composited into the reflective visor surface in real time, the crowd sees themselves — their actual faces, moving and reacting — reflected inside the driver's helmet. You're not a spectator. You're what the driver sees before the race starts.

Execution

01A camera array captures the crowd within the 60–80m illusion zone. The feed is processed in real time and mapped onto the curved visor surface with correct perspective and reflection distortion.
02The anamorphic format makes the helmet appear to project physically into the space above Regent Street — not content on a screen, but an object present in the city.
03Periodically, the visor lifts to reveal the driver's eyes looking directly at the crowd, before closing again. The reveal is the moment people film.
04The Williams W and "Here To Race" appear only at the end, after the emotional moment has landed. The experience earns the brand — not the other way around.
05Fan zone connection: a helmet photo booth below the screen where anyone can put their face inside a Williams visor for a personalised social share card.

Why it works

No F1 knowledge required — anyone understands their own face.

Turns a passive crowd into the subject. The team sees them back.

The share trigger is structural — everyone films themselves on a giant screen.

Directly addresses the one-directional relationship at the heart of the brief.

The filmable moment

Your face, at scale, inside a Formula 1 helmet on the biggest screen in London.

02 · Concept

Race
Me

You always lose.
By how much is the point.

Insight

F1 speed is intellectually understood but never physically felt. The margins — tenths of seconds, fractions of reaction time — are abstract numbers that don't connect. But the moment your body starts competing, it understands the gap. Williams' identity is about showing up to race. This mechanic makes everyone a racer, and makes the precision real rather than statistical.

Concept

Audience sensing detects a person in motion. The screen locks on to them immediately. A Williams driver appears in the cockpit and a real-time race begins — their pace versus the car. They always lose. But by exactly how much is displayed as a personal stat: "You were 0.003 seconds behind Alex Albon's reaction time at Silverstone."

Execution

01Motion detection identifies individuals entering the detection zone. Speed and direction are captured and expressed as a racing metric comparable to real Silverstone qualifying data.
02The driver responds in real time — pre-filmed reactions mapped to speed inputs: slow walk, fast walk, sprint, sudden stop. The driver appears to genuinely react to the specific person.
03The data comparison uses actual Williams lap and reaction time data from Silverstone. The gap is displayed as a personal stat on screen for 10 seconds before resetting for the next person.
04Fan zone integration: scan a QR code to receive your personal race stat as a branded shareable card — your silhouette versus the car, with your exact gap displayed.
05A daily leaderboard shows the closest gap — the person who came nearest to matching the driver's reaction time. Updated live on a secondary panel at the fan zone entrance.

Why it works

Makes F1 precision physically felt — not just understood as a number.

Personal stats create individual shareable moments at scale.

Works for any age or level of F1 knowledge.

Leaderboard mechanic drives competitive return visits throughout the week.

The filmable moment

The screen is racing you — specifically — and showing exactly how close you came to a Formula 1 driver.

03 · Concept

Lights
Out

The race starts
before the car moves.

Insight

Every Formula 1 fan knows the moment. Five red lights. Silence. A fraction of a second that separates world-class drivers from everyone else. Reaction time isn't just part of Formula 1 — it's where every race begins. That moment is universally understood, instantly felt, and requires no explanation. It belongs to everyone who has ever watched a start.

Concept

For one moment, the street becomes the starting grid. A giant Williams Racing installation challenges pedestrians to react to the iconic F1 starting lights. When the lights go out, they must make their first move as quickly as possible. Their reaction time is instantly compared against real Williams Racing data. The closer you are, the closer you are to thinking like a Formula 1 driver.

Execution

01Detection — audience sensing identifies someone entering the activation zone. The screen locks on and displays: YOU'RE ON THE GRID. A silhouette or tracking frame confirms they've been selected.
02The start procedure — the billboard transforms into a giant F1 starting gantry. Five red lights illuminate one by one. The participant is instructed: WAIT FOR THE LIGHTS TO GO OUT. The delay is randomised, exactly as in Formula 1. Crowds gather. Tension builds.
03Lights out — all five lights disappear simultaneously. The timer starts. The participant's first movement is detected through computer vision. The moment is unambiguous: you either moved, or you didn't.
04Instant result — the screen displays the personal stat immediately: YOUR REACTION TIME 0.231s / ALEX ALBON 0.207s / +0.024s — or: FASTER THAN 78% OF FANS TODAY. The result holds on screen for several seconds.
05Live leaderboard — top reaction times displayed in real time: TODAY'S FASTEST STARTS — P1 0.201s · P2 0.208s · P3 0.214s. Resets daily, creating repeat visits and competitive return throughout the week.

Why it works

Instantly recognisable F1 ritual — zero explanation required.

Randomised delay creates genuine tension and crowd anticipation.

Competitive and repeatable — the leaderboard brings people back daily.

Connects a simple human action to authentic Williams performance data.

The filmable moment

Five red lights on the biggest screen in London go out — and the street holds its breath.

04 · Concept

London Is
Our Garage

Grove just opened
in Piccadilly Circus.

Insight

Williams is one of Britain's greatest racing institutions — seven Constructors' Championships built from a village in Oxfordshire. Yet most Londoners walk past the brand every day without thinking about it. Their garage is the one place where everything they are comes together. This concept brings that world to the city that hosts their home race. Not as advertising. As presence.

Concept

The entire screen opens like a garage door — the anamorphic format used at its most powerful. Behind it: the real Williams garage. Mechanics. Drivers. Engineers. The car. Everything at 1:1 scale. It feels like Grove has appeared in the middle of London. Over 10 minutes the garage comes alive — and then the car leaves. This is the hero of the slot.

Execution

01The screen goes dark. From the centre it cracks open — the full 44.62m width peeling back like a garage door in the anamorphic space. The building appears to open. Behind it: the Williams garage at true scale.
02The garage is alive from the start. Mechanics work. Engineers analyse data. The car sits in the centre — life-size, every detail visible. Not a render. A window into the team's actual world.
03The drivers walk through — unhurried, present. They don't address the crowd. They exist in their world, which has appeared in yours. Both filmed at 1:1 scale against the garage environment.
04The car starts. The sound builds — routed through the screen's audio system into Regent Street. It moves forward through the garage door, appearing to pass through the screen into the space above the crowd.
05The garage empties. The door begins to close. As it does, a single line travels left to right across the full 44 metres: LONDON IS OUR GARAGE. Then, as the door seals: HERE TO RACE.
06Designed as the opening hero of the 10-minute slot — it establishes the world before the interactive concepts invite the crowd in. The statement that earns everything that follows.

Why it works

The anamorphic format used at its absolute ceiling.

A 10-minute narrative arc gives the whole slot genuine structure and a clear ending.

Nobody has ever seen a garage door open on Piccadilly Circus.

Establishes the Williams world before the interactive concepts invite the crowd in.

The filmable moment

A garage door opening onto Piccadilly Circus — and a Williams F1 car driving out onto Regent Street.

05 · Concept

Green
Light

The only countdown
that stops traffic.

Insight

Every driver stopped at a red light knows the feeling — the wait, the anticipation, the exact moment it changes. It's the closest most people will ever get to a Formula 1 start. For the week of the British Grand Prix, Williams owns that moment on Regent Street. Not as a screen. As infrastructure.

Concept

The billboard syncs in real time to Piccadilly Circus's traffic signals. When the lights turn red, the screen activates — counting down the seconds to green using the language and visual grammar of an F1 starting procedure. The red phase builds tension. The amber is the warning. When the light goes green: Lights Out. This runs all week, every cycle, to every driver and pedestrian on Regent Street.

Execution

01Live integration with TfL traffic signal data at Piccadilly Circus via API — enabled through DeepScreen's live data integration capability, already built into the screen.
02When lights turn red, the screen shifts into countdown mode — seconds remaining displayed as a Williams Racing HUD with F1 starting gantry visual language. Every stopped car becomes a front row seat.
03The UK traffic light sequence maps directly onto the F1 start procedure: red phase = five lights building, red+amber phase = the two-second warning before green, green = Lights Out. No translation required.
04When the light goes green: LIGHTS OUT — the screen fires the same visual from the Lights Out concept, tying both activations together into one coherent campaign language.
05Runs throughout the event week, every traffic cycle, day and night. Not dependent on the 10-minute slot. The activation scales to the entire week rather than a single session.
06A UK first — no countdown-to-green has ever appeared on a British traffic light. The announcement of the activation alone generates national press coverage before the event begins.

Why it works

Runs all week, every cycle — no activation slot required.

UK first: the announcement earns national press before anyone arrives.

Every stopped car is a captive front-row audience with zero effort.

Connects F1's most iconic moment to the most universal daily experience.

The filmable moment

A Williams Racing countdown appears on Piccadilly Circus the moment your light turns red. Then the lights go out.

Here To
Race.

The brief is not about awareness.
It's about reframing.

The Visor
Mirror

Race
Me

Lights
Out

London Is
Our Garage

Green
Light

Let's do
this.

Here ToRace.

The brief is not about awareness.It's about reframing.

The VisorMirror

RaceMe

LightsOut

London IsOur Garage

GreenLight

Let's dothis.

Here To
Race.

The brief is not about awareness.
It's about reframing.

The Visor
Mirror

Race
Me

Lights
Out

London Is
Our Garage

Green
Light

Let's do
this.