McLaren remained one of the few teams that had not made official the presentation date of its 2024 single-seater for the 2024 Formula 1 World Championship, but on this soporific Sunday in January it removed all doubts.
As well as Motorsport.com had already anticipated the end of 2023the Woking team will present its new car, which will be called MCL38, on February 14th, i.e. Valentine's Day.
McLaren joins Mercedes, which had already announced its presentation day a few days ago, again on February 14th. The two teams which are based in Brackley and Woking respectively will thus share the day of lovers, making it one of the most interesting in view of the 2024 Formula 1 World Championship.
McLaren will thus present the day after Ferrari, but the day before Red Bull. The Milton Keynes team, who originally chose February 8 as the presentation date, changed the day after failing a crash test of the RB20.
While waiting for the new arrival, McLaren was the first to reveal a small touch of the 2024 season by presenting the livery that will dress the MCL38. No more blue on the dress, just papaya and black. The design, recently retouched, was however very effective to the eye for an elegant and sporty livery.
The new single-seater which will always be entrusted to Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, the latter in his second year both in Woking and in Formula 1, will be called MCL38. This means that the MCL37 acronym will be skipped, discarded to make room for MCL60 in 2023, in order to celebrate 60 years since the team was founded.
In 2023, team principal Andrea Stella immediately stated at the presentation of the MCL60 that the car would start late due to development issues. In Woking they realized they had taken the wrong path and the track, in the first races, had been merciless.
Having debuted the B version of the MCL60, McLaren suddenly became the second force on the track. Not so much in the general Constructors' classification – it was too far behind Mercedes and Ferrari to aspire to a comeback – but in performance. This time the initial difficulties should never happen again. The conditional is a must, because Formula 1 is an extremely complex sport. But if the team led by the Italian engineer manages to continue pursuing the path taken in the second part of 2023, they could have a lot of fun in England.
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