FPV drone rally car chase with Quadrant and F1 star Lando Norris

Gaming and lifestyle brand Quadrant, founded by McLaren F1 driver Lando Norris, called us up earlier in the year to ask us about our FPV drone services. That’s how we ended up chasing a Ford Fiesta WRC down a dirt track with a team that included one of the world’s best Halo players!

Quadrant had envisioned a video designed to promote a merchant drop, including tees, hats, and hoodies. Having seen our motorsports projects with Praga at Anglesey Circuit and Bonhams Motorcars at Goodwood, they knew we were the perfect pick for the FPV sequences of their video ad.

Spoiler alert: the merch drop sold out in under five minutes!

We stayed with the Quadrant crew — including some incredibly skilled driving game streamers! — in an Airbnb not too far from the location of the shoot, and headed to the site the day before for a recce. A week prior, I’d been thinking about how to approach the shoot and which drone I’d use for the FPV chase.

We’d followed fast cars with drones before, but never WRCs (World Rally Cars). Very few people have. I’m now one of maybe 20-ish people in the world who can say I’ve done it! One of the hardest things about shooting F1 vehicles is matching the pace of the vehicles as they speed up and slow down around the track, traversing twists, turns, swerves, jumps, bumps, and other hazards presented by uneven ground.

This challenge is compounded by the fact that, when you’re flying FPV, all you can see is what your drone sees, so if your subject goes out of frame, you might have to ‘look around’ for it! We’re well-versed in tracking and manoeuvring with first-person drones now, though, so we nailed the flights.

But which drone to use? That was the question. I opted for a Nazgul Evoque F5 with a GoPro Hero 10 mounted on top. It’s very fast, very lightweight, and has plastic shielding over its internals, and once I’d bound it to our controller and tested it, the Nazgul was ready to go.

As the shoot drew closer, the Quadrant team told us we should maybe expect a bit of rain on the day, so I built a couple of bespoke waterproof FPV drones as a contingency. Naturally, there was a heatwave instead! So we did indeed use the Nazgul.

Mike taking full advantage of an awesome selfie opportunity!

The production was astoundingly well-organised. We had two takes in each location, and captured the money shot while following the car around a chicane and doing a barrel role with the drone!

It all took place in Greystoke Forest in Cumbria, a spot where every rally driver worth their salt has driven. I couldn’t not snap a few aerial photos of our picturesque surroundings:

Quadrant’s video edit came out fantastic. Our FPV sequences pair perfectly with the ground crew’s shots, the Quadrant-branded rally car looks the part, and the ‘OFF ROAD’ merch collection is sharp.

Huge gratitude to Lando Norris and the Quadrant team for inviting us to be a part of such an exhilarating shoot.

Find out more about Quadrant at quadrant.gg.