McLaren was the first team to show off its new livery for the 2024 F1 season, and it has now unveiled its new race car – called the MCL38 – in full. While the latest images showcase some updates, fans can expect plenty more changes for the pre-season test next week.
- MCL38 features a new papaya and black livery
- Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri continue for 2024
- F1 pre-season testing on February 21-23
McLaren MCL38 revealed: What’s new
The MCL38 features a papaya and black livery with chrome accents, doing away with the hints of blue seen on previous McLarens since 2018. Exposed carbon fibre has emerged as a big trend across the grid this year, with teams trying to minimise paint and wraps to save weight.
Last year, McLaren made some big gains thanks to some effective upgrades brought in mid-season. The MCL60 started off the season being rather uncompetitive, with McLaren scoring just 17 points in the first eight rounds. However, the team pulled off an incredible turnaround and collected 285 points since the upgrade was introduced – enough to beat Aston Martin to fourth place in the 2023 standings.
The limited images of the MCL38 released so far show a tighter sidepod undercut, similar to the Aston Martin AMR24, along with a few more tweaks.
“Going into this year, we look to build on the momentum of last season but are realistic in the knowledge that every team will have made progress and found competitiveness for their 2024 cars. We now have everything in place from an infrastructure, people and culture perspective so we continue to push forward and build on the work done to get us back to front of the grid,” said Team Principal Andrea Stella.
“There are a number of innovations on the car, but not all the areas we want to address have been completed for our launch-spec car. Those areas now become the focus of our in-season development, which is already in progress,” he added.
McLaren 2024 F1 drivers
McLaren continues with an unchanged driver line-up of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri in 2024.
Andrea Stella takes on his second year as Team Principal. There are some new additions on the technical side, though, with ex-Red Bull technical executive Rob Marshall and ex-Ferrari aero specialist David Sanchez now joining McLaren. Both of them started officially working with the team on January 2.
Pre-season testing gets underway in Bahrain on February 21-23 before the season kicks off at the same venue on February 29-March 2.
