F1 News: Japanese Grand Prix Trophies To Include Kiss Activated Feature

The winning driver's flag will illuminate the trophy when he kisses it.

The Japanese Grand Prix trophies could be the most unique so far as they are equipped with a kiss-activated feature, which is meant to highlight the country flag of the Grand Prix winner when he kisses it. 

Covered with LED lights throughout, the flag colors will spread across the trophy from the point of contact in a waving motion. The trophy will be programmed once the winner of the race is determined at the end of the Japanese Grand Prix in Suzuka. 

The trophy features an aluminium design, developed by a collaboration between the title sponsor of the Japanese GP Lenovo and Pininfarina- a company on its way to making the world's first pure-electric hyper GT car. 

The technology will also be applied to the winning trophy at the United States Grand Prix in October. However, just to clarify, only the winning trophies will receive the kiss-activated feature in both races. 

Japanese Grand Prix will have the world's first ever 'kiss activated' trophies

The trophies will activate the lights of the national flag of the winning driver when kissed.

[@A_S12] pic.twitter.com/E4gMVwxLKd

— RBR Daily (@RBR_Daily) September 23, 2023

For the runner-up trophies, they will feature light cores that will highlight the flags of the host country, which is red for Japan this weekend, and Blue for the United States trophy. Of course, the trophies are powered by rechargeable batteries. 

Revealing the design of the new trophies, Pininfarina of America Design Manager IDX Francisco Barboza Grasa told RacingNews365:

"It was kind of a back and forth [process] between [Lenovo, Formula 1 and Pirinfarina].

"There was always the challenge of respecting as much as we could the brand of Formula 1 itself, the heritage of Formula 1.

"That's why the shape of the trophies are like the Coca-Cola shape of the cars. We also tried to stay very honest in the materials used.

"The main shell is built with aluminium which is fully recycled. It is a material we think reflects nicely with Formula 1, it is not carbon fibre, but alumnium is used in other places on the car.

Would the kiss-activated trophy highlight the Dutch flag tomorrow? We'll have to wait for another day to find out.