Black Cats & Chequered Flags celebrates the life of one of Formula 1’s earliest champions using VR and mixed reality.
Directed by Elisabetta Rotolo and Siobhan McDonnell, Black Cats & Chequered Flags is an interactive VR and MR experience focused on Alberto Ascari. Winning both the 1952 and 1953 championships with Ferrari, this tribute to Italy’s most successful F1 driver looks back at his relationship with his father and childhood, his superstitious nature, and his rise to fame.
I went hands-on with this 20-minute project during Venice Immersive 2025, where it has immediately become one of my highlights. As a long-suffering Ferrari fan in Formula 1, having the chance to explore Ascari’s life through an immersive experience required little convincing. After getting into a vintage pit crew uniform, myself and two others took our places across a large room.
This begins with a fun little mixed reality mini-game where you and your co-op partners are tasked with completing a 50s-style pit stop, no ridiculously smooth tire changes needing less than two seconds here. We had to swap out the tires, hammer the new ones in, refuel the car, and give it a quick clean too using hand tracking. Nothing groundbreaking and we didn’t beat the fastest time, but it’s a good icebreaker before the main event.
This soon transitions into the VR side of the story, which isn’t hugely in-depth while still capturing key moments of Ascari’s life. We witness the defining impact his father, Antonio Ascari, had on his life before Antonio’s untimely death in a racing accident. The ever prominent black cat highlights Alberto’s superstitious nature, offering an intriguing insight into his life I wasn’t previously aware of.
That’s all portrayed through immersive environments with sadly limited interactivity, letting you pick up digital photos or a trophy but not much more. The presentation can feel slightly rough at points with jagged shadows, though there’s character to these stylized visuals that makes this easier to forgive.
Sequences often throw in real-life archive footage from these events too for comparison, which is a welcome touch. One segment showcases the horrifying incident at the 1955 Monaco Grand Prix, where Ascari crashed at the Harbor Chicane, ending up in the harbor with his Lancia car but miraculously surviving. This makes the experience feel almost like a museum.
However, this leaves certain aspects of his racing career unexplored, and that’s rather disappointing. Beyond a brief mention, Black Cats & Chequered Flags doesn’t really touch upon his famous rivalry with Juan Manuel Fangio, the five-time champion whose records remained unsurpassed for decades until Michael Schumacher came along. To see that in action would be fantastic; it’s a missed opportunity.
No one from the team was present during my demo beyond event staff, so I couldn’t ask if a home release is eventually planned. However, I’m aware this will exhibit at Museo Ferrari Maranello from December 24 to January 6. I certainly hope it gets a home release as despite some rough edges, I enjoyed my time with Black Cats & Chequered Flags. It’s a brief yet compelling window into the legacy of one of Formula 1’s greatest drivers, exploring an era rarely touched upon in modern media.
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