Cisco and McLaren Racing have expanded their global partnership to boost its security measures using Cisco’s platforms.

It will offer the F1 racing team end-to-end visibility across their network, heightened threat intelligence and simplified security management across the team’s network operations, said the company.

Through the new agreement, Cisco also becomes an official security partner of the McLaren F1 team, building on the company’s existing role as Official Technology Partner.

With the expanded partnership, the legendary F1 team leverages security innovation across the Cisco Security portfolio, via a combination of on-premises hardware and cloud-based software, including Cisco Secure Firewall, Cisco XDR and more.

Matt Dennington, Co-Chief Commercial Officer at McLaren Racing says: “Cisco has proven time and again to be a dynamic partner for McLaren Racing, with their technology playing a crucial role in our success both on and off the track. This next phase of our partnership focuses on advancing this further by leveraging their security technology to keep our complex and distributed organisation connected and protected.”

The ability to anticipate, act and simplify operations is essential in the highly competitive, always-on world of F1. Cisco Secure Firewall helps the McLaren F1 Team with end-to-end visibility, simplified security management and network segmentation across distributed and hybrid networks the team relies on to deliver mission-critical information and data.

Cisco XDR allows McLaren Racing to investigate, prioritise and remediate the highest priority incidents with AI-enhanced speed, efficiency, and decisiveness.

“The McLaren Formula 1 Team is an incredible proof point to showcase why leading organisations trust Cisco – our technology portfolio delivers across dynamic global environments, helps achieve meaningful results, and powerfully impacts McLaren Racing through our collaboration and partnership,” remarked Carrie Palin, SVP & Chief Marketing Officer at Cisco.

“We believe our breadth of security solutions will serve to accelerate the narrative and highlight why Cisco gives businesses the confidence and insight they need to operate securely.”

With Cisco’s recent acquisition of Splunk, a long-time technology partner of the McLaren F1 Team, the organisation will enjoy even greater digital resiliency across their entire digital environment. Cisco and Splunk will bring the full power of the network together with fully integrated security and observability solutions to help McLaren Racing remain connected and protected both on the track and off.

“Our partnership with the McLaren F1 Team is one of shared culture and values,” added Jeetu Patel, Cisco Executive Vice President and General Manager of Security and Collaboration.

“McLaren Racing competes in a world where every millisecond counts, and at Cisco, we are powering enterprise security with AI-native security products that augment security teams to defend at machine scale.”

This announcement builds on an existing relationship between the McLaren F1 Team and Cisco, which since 2022 has served as an Official Technology Partner of the F1 team, providing networking infrastructure across multiple facets of the team’s global operations.

In addition, the McLaren F1 Team leverages Cisco ThousandEyes on race days to assure the delivery of vital race data and telemetry, ensuring that every digital service performs with the precision required in the high-pressure, remote networking environments in which they operate.

Webex by Cisco, the suite of cloud-based collaboration tools, is also the Official Collaboration Partner of the McLaren F1 Team, enabling the team to seamlessly collaborate in real-time no matter the geographic location, implement flexible and secure hybrid working environments, and create new opportunities for fans around the world to connect with the team.