F1 | McLaren has unveiled the MCL38: will it be able to grow further?

After many small anticipations, the time for the main course has arrived. McLaren Racing this morning revealed its new car for the 2024 Formula 1 season, the MCL38.

The name had already been released in January, but today the team led by Andrea Stella took the wraps off the new single-seater and did so at 9.38am Italian time this morning. No physical presentation, no high-level ceremony as had happened in previous years, but a simple post on the pages of the main social networks to spread the first photos of the new car.

McLaren, like Ferrari and Aston Martin, has decided to focus on a nose that attaches to the front wing on the second profile and not on the first, therefore potentially giving up making the most of the flexion of the wing to generate load in favor of other advantages.

The mouths of the bellies are quite large and swoop towards the rear, taking up the concepts already expressed by Red Bull and followed by all the others. Also on the MCL38 there are two bazookas on the bonnet to bring hot air to the rear wing and make the most of the beam wing.

The rear suspension on the push rod, leaving Ferrari and Haas the only single-seaters to have chosen the pull rod system right at the rear. At the front, however, the pull rod system was chosen to better exploit the flows towards the bellies and the Venturi channels. For a technical analysis of the MCL38 we refer you to the one written by Giorgio Piola and Franco Nugnes.

The livery that dresses the carbon bodywork of the MCL38 had already been shown a few weeks ago thanks to some photos taken by the team on the MCL60 with the livery updated for 2024.

The inevitable papaya orange remains as well as the black, which is not painted: the team decided to exploit the carbon color to save a few grams, always precious in these single-seaters, and eliminate the blue it had used over the last few years .

The livery is one of the most elegant seen so far, although it also uses carbon black exactly like most of the teams that have presented their single-seaters to date.

The MCL38 will make its debut on the track immediately. Today, in fact, he will be the protagonist of the first filming day, so he will be able to take advantage of the 200 kilometers foreseen by the sporting regulations. The single-seater, together with its twin (when it is ready), will be sent to Bahrain for winter testing and, subsequently, for the opening grand prix of the season which will be held in Sakhir.

McLaren MCL38

Photo by: McLaren

The drivers, as well as the team leaders, remain the fixed points of a season, the 2024 season, which will see McLaren continue on the positive wave taken in the summer of last year and continued until the end of 2023.

Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri will be the starting drivers for the second consecutive year. Norris will be chasing the first victory of his career, which he has already come close to but not close enough to grasp. Piastri, on the other hand, after having already won a Sprint, will try to repeat himself in a Sunday race after having increased his experience having just returned from his debut season as a starter in Formula 1.

Andrea Stella will continue to occupy the role of team principal, even more so after the excellent work done since he inherited the role following the departure of Andreas Seidl, who moved to Sauber (which will become Audi from 2026). Zak Brown, CEO of McLaren, has seen the sports department grow year after year, making a large number of choices that have brought the Woking team back close to the best after years of darkness.

“It's fantastic to be able to launch our 2024 car, the MCL38, at Silverstone today. It's fantastic to see our new car in the 2024 livery on track and to see the hard work and dedication of the team,” said Zak Brown.

“The great thing about the sport is its competitiveness, and so we have to remain realistic, because each team will have made progress in the previous season. The real test of whether we have made steps in the right direction will be qualifying in Bahrain.”

“We are all excited to get back to racing, but we know we have a long season ahead of us and that there is still a lot of work to do to ensure we build on the progress made throughout 2023.”

“The team is excited to unveil the MCL38 today and see it on track for the first time. Looking ahead to this year, we look to build on last season's momentum, but we are realistic in the knowledge that each team will have made progress and found their competitiveness for its 2024 cars. Now we have everything in place from the point of view of infrastructure, people and culture, so we continue to push forward and build on the work done to return to the front row”, added the team principal Andrea Stella.

“Before we hit the track for the competitive sessions, we have a lot of work to do, including putting the MCL38 through its paces during pre-season testing in Bahrain. The team has done a good job over the winter and we are confident we can get going right off the bat, but we know we have important tasks to do before the start of the season. There are several innovations on the car, but not all the areas we want to address have been completed for our launch car. These areas are now at the heart of our seasonal development, which is already underway.”

“My thanks go to the entire team, both trackside and at MTC and MRC, for their great effort in ensuring the car was ready to hit the track today, as well as to our colleagues at Mercedes HPP for their continued collaboration We now turn our attention to the long season ahead of us, awaiting the tests in Bahrain next week.”

Now comes the most important, but also the most difficult step: the last. The one who will have to bring McLaren back to competing for victories and titles. Will he make it this year already?