Williams Racing Formula 1 Hacked, Spoiling Its Special Augmented Reality Launch

Williams Racing racing team has unveiled the FW43B, its challenger for the 2021 Formula 1 season, as well as the technical changes that come in the livery's blue, white, and yellow color scheme.

The original plan for the FW43B’s launch was to use use augmented reality (AR) on March 5, 2021, where people could download a dedicated app to their device, to view the car in all angles, instead of the more traditional unveiling.

However, the app Williams Racing has set up, had the car's model hard-coded in it.

As a result, keen-eyed computer enthusiasts who dug deep inside the app and found the hidden code, decided to unveil William's 2021 design ahead of the launch, by simply extracting the renders from the app.

The AR app, which lacks adequate security, gave users early and unrestricted access to the looks of the FW43B, its new livery, and even its CAD models.

When Williams Racing realized this, it decided to scrap the AR launch altogether, remove the dedicated app from both the Apple's App Store and Android's Google Play Store, and returned to the old way of showcasing.

Williams Racing F1 driver George Russell was disappointed, saying that the incident is a "massive shame."

"I’ve seen the app and it was going to be an awesome experience for you guys. Whoever did this, seriously not cool," he said.

The livery was inspired by the successful Williams Racing cars of the 1980s and 1990s, which meant a make a return of the yellow and the shades of blue, which color combination has become synonymous with the iconic British team.

In a world that is healing from a year of 'COVID-19' coronavirus pandemic, the design is meant as a fresh start for the team, which has a new owner, with also seeing 2021 as a something of a transitional year, with the team's greatest focus on 2022, when the new rules come in.

With new hopes and new expectations, Williams Racing is expecting a sensational season this 2021.

The team wanted the car's design and livery to be the team's representation of its hopes, as the team continues its progress in pursuit of returning to the front of the grid.

But unfortunately, eagled-eye users of the app were faster. The leak effectively threw months of hard work to the garbage can.

Regardless of the leak and his disappointment, George Russell decided to at least show what people are actually missing because of this incident:

Newly appointed Williams Racing CEO, Jost Capito, said:

Because the data has been leaked, on the planned day, Williams Racing introduced the livery and design, the old fashioned way:

It should be noted that the incident happened when one of Williams Racing' sponsors is Acronis, a cybersecurity firm.

That announcement from Williams Racing quoted Serguei Beloussov, the CEO of Acronis, who stressed the importance of keeping the racing team’ data safe:

The incident is unfortunate, as Williams Racing’ design leak came after the team's announcement for an extension to the Acronis sponsorship.

However, Acronis clarifies to Eyerys that the compromised AR app was "completely outside of Williams Racing's in-house systems and networks which are protected by Acronis."