From F1 to Esports: How Secretlab Became the King of Gaming Chairs

Alex Harrington | Feb 19, 2025

Titan EVO McLaren Edition / Secretlab

Gaming chair specialists Secretlab has grown its reputation by partnering with the celebrated brand of McLaren Racing. This partnership illustrates how Secretlab has not only become a leader in gaming chairs, but one that is trusted by some of the best teams in Formula 1 and other forms of motorsport.

The McLaren collaboration resulted in the TITAN Evo McLaren Edition, released last month, featuring design features inspired by McLaren's racing strong legacy.  

Secretlab began in 2014 when Ian Ang and Alaric Choo, both having backgrounds in professional esports, saw an opportunity to create ergonomic gaming chairs. Their initial product, the Throne V1, released a year later, marked the start of Secretlab's growth. By 2020, the company had already sold over a million chairs, partly thanks to the work-from-home boom during the pandemic. Secretlab has also expanded its offerings to include gaming desks, which I personally use and absolutely adore.

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Partnering with McLaren Racing in 2025, Secretlab aimed to merge gaming culture with motorsport levels of innovation. The TITAN Evo McLaren Edition chair embodies this, while also showing off McLaren's iconic design elements, such as the papaya color accents and hexagonal grille patterns drawn from their road car designs.

It incorporates carbon fiber leatherette, nodding to McLaren's pioneering use of carbon fiber technology in Formula 1 cars. Ergonomically, the chair includes features like a 4-way lumbar support system and hugely comfortable PlushCell memory foam in the lumbar pillow. This collaboration celebrates McLaren's over six decades of innovation in racing, tracing back to its founding by Bruce McLaren in 1963.  

TITAN Evo McLaren / Secretlab

Alaric Choo, Secretlab's co-founder, and Chief Strategy Officer explained the natural fit between Secretlab and brands like McLaren in a discussion with Sports Illustrated.

"We share the same high standards for quality and performance as these legacy automotive brands, and teaming up with them came quite naturally. Over the years, we’ve brought to life some of the biggest collaborations cross-industries, including entertainment (Warner Bros), gaming (Blizzard) and esports (Riot Games).

"Some of these collaborations sold out in minutes — our Cyberpunk 2077 Edition and Secretlab for Automobili Lamborghini Pinnacle Edition to name a few. Pre-orders for our Game of Thrones Collection were also booked out for months on end.

"Certain products capture your attention and elicit an emotional connection. This is a similar trait between our chairs (and why they’ve been used by some of the most discerning professionals) and the likes of McLaren and Automobili Lamborghini — and this commonality is the key to why we’ve been able to collaborate on new cohesive designs that complement both brands and hit home for fans.

"It’s also the reason we’ve been able to successfully further gaming’s place in today’s mainstream culture, while continually allowing our partner brands to connect with our (gaming) community."

Secretlab's approach to partnerships goes beyond the usual measures of success like race wins or sales numbers.

"A successful company starts with a world-class product," Choo confirmed.

"As chair and desk specialists, we always take a product-first approach — working tirelessly to develop our in-house R&D capabilities and obsessing over every detail to produce our version of the perfect product.

"Secretlab is very uniquely positioned with our economies of scale, years of product development and research, and understanding of millions of customers. There are virtually no other companies out there making more than 1,000,000 premium upholstered computer chairs of a high caliber each year.

"With our economies of scale, we have access to the most advanced manufacturing technologies, and can explore more premium materials and features — giving us more space to experiment with incorporating what’s unique to our brand partners into our own product designs. "

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McLaren's 2024 Constructors’ Championship victory will certainly start this partnership off on the right foot. The win celebrated McLaren's first return to championship glory since 1998. And while the win has boosted brand exposure, Secretlab evaluates partnership through things less tangible: innovation and community connection.  

Secretlab's influence unsurprisingly extends into esports. Trusted by professional teams like T1 and players like Tenz and Puppey, Secretlab chairs have become synonymous with quality in competitive gaming. The company has received numerous accolades, including over sixty Editor’s Choice awards from various tech publications and remains trusted by over three million users globally.  

"With this particular collaboration, we’re crafting the world’s first McLaren-inspired chair and celebrating McLaren Racing’s legacy in the field," Choo noted. "It was a fruitful process of working with their team to identify elements that are iconic to them and best represent McLaren’s innovations, then fusing that into our product purposefully."

For the latest F1 news, head over to F1 on SI.