Vodaphone is a huge mobile communications company, and it's also the primary sponsor of the McLaren Mercedes F1 team. The video after the jump shows just what their millions of dollars in sponsorship money can buy: a viral video staring Lewis Hamilton. Vodaphone makes the Blackberry Storm mobile smart phone, and the video kicks off with some office nerds who have hacked the Storm to control an R/C F1 car. They use the phone's built-in accelerometer so that turning the phone like a steering wheel controls the car's direction. The accelerator and the brake, meanwhile, are controlled via buttons on the phone's touch screen.
After publishing a video of their office grand prix on the web, the team of programmers is invited to the garage of McLaren Mercedes where team engineers have adapted the system to control Lewis Hamilton's actual F1 car. Hilarity ensues when Hamilton himself takes the car out on the track, sans driver, and does a lap behind the wheel of the Blackberry Storm. It's an amusing viral video and halfway convincing if we weren't willing to swear on our mothers that McLaren Mercedes would never allow its multi-million dollar F1 car to be controlled via a phone, let alone outfit the car with enough servos to actually perform the functions of steering, braking and changing gears.
