F1 Champion McLaren Racing Joins Hedera Council to Help Govern Network

In brief

McLaren Racing has joined the Hedera Council as a governing member with equal voting rights.
The motorsport brand has a large following and won the last two Formula 1 team championships.
McLaren has launched free-to-mint digital collectibles on Hedera, with drops tied to specific races throughout the 2026 season.

McLaren Racing, which competes in Formula 1 and IndyCar, has joined the Hedera Council to help govern the enterprise blockchain network.

The Surrey, UK-based racing team—which won the last two F1 team championships, and last year’s driver title with Lando Norris—will contribute to Hedera software and services governance, actively participate in the network, and hold equal voting rights alongside other Council members, according to an announcement.

“McLaren Racing is built on performance and innovation, and that extends to how we engage our fans,” said McLaren Racing Co-Chief Commercial Officer Nick Martin, in a statement. “Joining Hedera Council enables us to help shape the Hedera network’s evolution, while delivering a seamless, secure, and scalable fan experience worldwide.”

McLaren has already launched free-to-mint digital collectibles on Hedera featuring race and location-specific creative elements, with drops during the Australian Grand Prix weekend, Chinese GP, and a third scheduled for this coming weekend’s Japanese GP. The collectibles use both native Hedera wallets and Web2 social sign-on wallets, targeting motorsport fans new to Web3 as well as Hedera community members new to racing.

The partnership extends beyond collectibles, with McLaren leadership set to participate in HederaCon on May 4 in Miami Beach, positioned alongside the Formula 1 Miami Grand Prix. Hedera operates through a 39-member rotating council spanning finance, energy, legal, tech, and academia sectors, with no single member holding more voting power than others.

Last month, shipping giant FedEx joined the Hedera Council, expanding a roster that includes other notable firms including Google, IBM, Dell Technologies, LG, Deutsche Telekom, and video game maker Ubisoft.

Hedera’s HBAR token is up more than 2% on the day, recently trading at $0.094 per data from CoinGecko. The token remains 83% off its all-time high mark of $0.569 set back in 2021.