McLaren unveils 2025 F1 car in camo livery at Silverstone

Dominika Jordan
Feb 13, 2025, 06:41 AM ET

In a thrilling start to the 2025 Formula 1 season, reigning constructors' champions McLaren have become the first team to debut their new car. The highly anticipated MCL39 made its track debut at Silverstone in an interim ‘camo’ livery, with the official race livery set to be unveiled at F1's season main launch event in London on February 18.

McLaren utilized a promotional filming day to initiate the first miles on the new car ahead of official testing in Bahrain from February 26 to February 28. The first race of the season is scheduled for March 16 in Australia.

The one-time livery, described by McLaren as a "striking geometric camo design in shades of papaya and black," was necessary for the team to showcase the car to the media prior to F1's official launch event. Although all ten teams have agreed to keep their actual liveries under wraps until the London event, this does not prevent new cars from making track debuts in different liveries or in private sessions.

Team Principal Andrea Stella highlighted the rigorous development approach McLaren adopted during the winter to ensure the MCL39's performance surpasses that of last year's MCL38. The primary focus has been on enhancing downforce and aerodynamic efficiency, critical performance factors in modern F1, leading to significant modifications across the car.

"Downforce and aero efficiency are by far the most important targets that you have -- which is what we tried to achieve with this new car," Stella remarked. "It is a car which we tried to raise the bar in many areas, including the fundamental layout."

Stella continued, "Pretty much every fundamental component of the layout has been subject to some innovation in order to gain -- sometimes not just by marginal gains -- some technical opportunities for development. This is to serve the purposes of aerodynamic requirements, or mechanical grip, but pretty much from the front wing to the gearbox everything has been subject to optimization, sometimes incrementally, sometimes quite substantially."

Last season, McLaren clinched the constructors' title in a tight contest with Ferrari, while Lando Norris finished second in the drivers' championship behind Red Bull's Max Verstappen. After completing a morning of wet and cold running in the new car, Norris shared positive initial impressions.

"It felt normal, I'd say, so that's been the first good step, because it has been quite innovative with some of the designs and some things that they've tried to attack with the car this year," Norris said. "The guys have done a very good job to try and explore more areas and push boundaries."

Norris added, "So you're always a little bit nervous that things are not going to be perfect when you try them, and how well they're going to match the track and wind tunnel and all these things put together. But I think everything's working as it should, and everything feels normal. Just with the conditions, things change quite quickly."

Stella confirmed that the car would undergo a series of upgrades throughout the early rounds of the season. "The car we see today [on track] for this promotional event is pretty substantially the one we will see during the Bahrain test," he said. "There will be some updates during the early races of the season."

"We are very aware that last season, even if [we] had a successful season, the margin we had from a performance point of view was small, meaning we needed to be aggressive with the car to try and cash in as much performance as possible."

McLaren CEO Zak Brown emphasized the heightened competition expected this year. "We must be realistic that every team will have made progress over the winter. Last year highlighted just how much the grid has closed up, which is a brilliant thing for the sport."

"Although we believe we have made further steps forward since the championship-winning MCL38, we won't know where we sit in the standings until we get into qualifying in Australia."

"We're a team that never stops racing and we'll be giving it our all to bring both championships back to Woking."

Other teams are also preparing for their launches, with Williams set to reveal its car on February 14 at Silverstone, and Haas planning a private test of its new car on February 16 at the same circuit.