The MCL38 is revealed by McLaren Formula 1 Team

Today, the McLaren Formula 1 Team revealed the MCL38, the papaya team’s car for the upcoming 2024 FIA Formula 1 Championship.

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In preparation for the 2024 season, the team are also conducting a promotional filming day at Silverstone Circuit, with Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri sharing driver duties.

The MCL38’s on-track debut follows the reveal of our 2024 livery, which incorporates fan-favourite elements of papaya and anthracite with a touch of chrome.

The team heads to pre-season testing at the Bahrain International Circuit on February 21-23 ahead of the opening race of the season at the 2024 Bahrain Grand Prix on March 2.

Zak Brown, CEO McLaren Racing, said:

Launching our 2024 competitor, the MCL38, at Silverstone is fantastic today. It’s great to see our new car in its 2024 livery on track and see the hard work and dedication of the team come together.

The fantastic thing about this sport is its competitiveness; therefore, we must remain realistic as every team will have made progress in the off-season. The actual test of whether we’ve made steps in the right direction will be qualifying in Bahrain. We’re all excited to go racing again, but we know there’s a long season ahead of us and a lot of work still to do to ensure we build on the progress we made throughout 2023.

Andrea Stella, Team Principal, McLaren F1, said:

The team are excited to present the MCL38 today and to see it on track for the first time. 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 the front of the grid.

Before we hit the track for competitive sessions, we have a lot of work to do, including putting the MCL38 through its paces during the Bahrain pre-season test. The team has done an excellent job over the winter, and we are confident we can hit the ground running, but we know we have important tasks at hand before the season starts. 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 have now become the focus of our in-season development, which is already in progress.

My thanks go to the entire team, both trackside and at MTC and MRC, for their outstanding efforts in ensuring the car was ready to hit the track today and our colleagues at Mercedes HPP for their continued collaboration. We now focus on the long season ahead and look forward to Bahrain Testing next week.

Lando Norris, Driver of McLaren F1, said:

I’m excited to get behind the wheel of the MCL38 and see how it runs. The livery looks great on the new car, so it’s fun to get out on track today.

I’m looking forward to shaking the car down in Bahrain. I am entirely confident that we’ll continue pushing forward from last season’s turnaround. However, the actual test of our progress is coming up when we put the car through its paces in testing ahead of qualifying and racing for the Bahrain Grand Prix.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been back at the MTC, putting a lot of work in on the simulator with my engineering team to ensure we’re fully prepared ahead of next week. Thank you to everyone, trackside and at the factory, for their work to get us to this point. I’m excited to bring to Bahrain and go racing again.

Oscar Piastri, Driver, McLaren F1, said:

It’s great to drive the MCL38 on track for the first time today. It’s an essential milestone in our development for the year, and I’m excited to see it on track in its new livery.

We won’t know where we stand regarding competitiveness until we go racing in Bahrain. Still, we’ve been preparing as best as possible by spending time in the simulator, working closely with everyone who’s designed, built and will run the car to ensure we’re ready to start strongly.

I’m looking forward to the next few weeks leading into a busy year. Thank you to the team for everything they’ve done to prepare us for 2024. I’m excited to kick off my second season in F1 properly.

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