29 Runners Cover 100 Kilometers of London Streets to Draw a Giant Jaguar for a Guinness World Record

Jaguar TCS Racing set a Guinness World Record this week by turning the streets of London into a giant GPS canvas. Twenty-nine runners covered more than 100 kilometers, passing a GPS tracking device between them like a relay baton, to trace out the shape of the team's Jaguar I-TYPE 7 Formula E car, according to the Times of India.

The route started and ended at the London headquarters of Tata Consultancy Services, the team's title and technology sponsor. Guinness World Records required the group to hit specific benchmarks to make the record official: the finished route had to form recognizable artwork, the mapping had to be continuous with no gaps, the GPS files needed timestamps, and organizers had to keep full records of every runner who took part.

The full image of the completed route is scheduled for release at 9 a.m. British Summer Time on Wednesday, August 12, according to the Times of India. Until then, the exact shape and path of the 100-kilometer drawing hasn't been made public.

The timing isn't random. Jaguar TCS Racing is using the stunt to mark the close of Formula E's GEN3 era, the technical rulebook era that wraps up with the London E-Prix scheduled for August 15 and 16. Those two races will be the last run under GEN3 specifications before the series moves to its next generation of cars.

Jaguar has a legitimate case for making noise about this era. According to the Times of India, the team won 18 races across the four GEN3 seasons, more than any other team on the grid. It also picked up 23 podium finishes and scored 1,144 points over that stretch. In a sport where manufacturer bragging rights matter almost as much as trophies, that's a real record to plant a flag on.

The running stunt wasn't the only record Jaguar TCS Racing chased this week. The team also organized a second Guinness World Record attempt: a racing simulator relay with 109 participants, run on a virtual 2-kilometer recreation of the London ExCeL track at the team's technical headquarters, according to the Times of India.

Both records function as marketing built around a real sporting achievement. Formula E teams and their sponsors, TCS included, have every incentive to generate headlines heading into a season finale, and a Guinness World Record attempt is a cheap, shareable way to do that compared to buying advertising. The underlying facts remain true. Twenty-nine people ran 100 kilometers. The GEN3-era win total is a matter of series record books, not marketing spin.

What's left unresolved is simple: nobody outside the team has seen the finished drawing yet. The public unveiling doesn't happen until Wednesday morning in the UK, so until then, the claim that the route forms a recognizable outline of the I-TYPE 7 rests on Jaguar TCS Racing's own description, pending the official image release and Guinness's confirmation.

The London E-Prix on August 15 and 16 closes out the GEN3 era for the entire Formula E grid, not just Jaguar, and will be the last event before the series transitions to its next chassis and technical rules. Whether Jaguar's dominant GEN3 record translates into anything similar under the new specifications is an open question nobody can answer until cars hit the track under the new rulebook.