McLaren F1 partly back in iconic livery

McLaren wants nothing more than to return to its former glory. It is working hard on this, among other things, by making updates to the car, which helped Lando Norris to fourth place last weekend. A nice boost, but McLaren obviously wants more. After all, it has been 25 years since it last won the Constructors’ Championship. A little less long ago, McLaren grabbed the last driver’s title with Lewis Hamilton. That was in 2008 and then not only the car but also the color scheme looked completely different than it does now. McLaren then drove a partly red and partly ‘chrome-plated’ car, which belonged to sponsor Vodafone. Nowadays, Google Chrome is a sponsor and chrome accents also fit well with that. McLaren kills two birds with one stone.

With this temporary livery, McLaren mainly winks at its own past. After all, McLaren has been in existence for 60 years this year and celebrated this earlier with the so-called ‘Triple Crown’ livery in Monaco. The Chrome livery will feature on the MCL60 at the British Grand Prix this weekend. We are curious to see if it stays at this or if McLaren has even more special liveries in store for us this year. Although the Triple Crown livery was already somewhat reminiscent of it, we wouldn’t be surprised if there was another direct reference to the Marlboro colors of the dominant MP4/4 from 1988, among others. A (even indirect) reference to a cigarette brand is sensitive because of advertising legislation, but never say never.