McLaren unveiled its new car for the 2022 season at an event at its Woking headquarters on Friday, with a revised aerodynamic design and a different blue and papaya livery.
It was the second team after Aston Martin to allow a real glimpse of what the 2022 grid will look like by unveiling a physical car. Haas opted to reveal its new model through renders , while Red Bull used a show car to introduce its RB18.
Following its unveiling on Thursday, Aston Martin debuted its AMR22 for the first time on track on Friday, completing a filming day at Silverstone.
Teams normally use one of their two allowed filming days each year before testing as a first shakedown ahead of the official pre-season premiere.
Asked by Motorsport.com about McLaren’s plan to do the first few kilometers in the MCL36 on a circuit, team principal Andreas Seidl set the target just before day one in Barcelona.
“Like probably any other team, we are also planning to do a day of filming very close to the start of the Barcelona test,” said Seidl.
“That’s in the plans, but we still have a lot of boxes to check next week to finally be ready for that.”
“But with the great work everyone is putting in under the leadership of Piers [Thynne], James [Key] and Andrea [Stella], I’m absolutely confident we’ll be ready.”
Filming days are limited to 100km, which means McLaren drivers Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo will not be able to have a long test with the new car until February 23-25 at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. .
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McLaren F1 technical director, James Key , felt that the team could be “proud to present a real car” at its launch and that while it was the version they would bring to Barcelona, they had withheld some elements “for obvious reasons”.
“There are some sensitive areas, but a lot more will be seen when we’re driving the car on the track,” admitted Key.
“As far as the development plan is concerned, like all teams, I am sure there will be development steps from the beginning because we are still in the learning process at this stage.”
“The rate of development and the proactivity that the whole team is showing to find the next step forward is really great. So we will introduce some updates in Bahrain. And then the next step is already in the works.”
“You will see that the car changes, but I am sure that all the cars will change.”
