McLaren Shares Launch Date For The Papaya 2024 Challenger

Monday, 22 January 2024 at 11:00

McLaren Formula One team shared an official date for the unveiling of the MCL38 - the team's 2024 car.

Following a recent livery reveal, McLaren also shared an official car launch date through their social media account X (formerly Twitter).

While every single team tries to find their own spot in the calendar (due to marketing reasons), McLaren decided to join Aston Martin on the 12th of Februrary.

Every single team also tries to push the date of their car launch as close to the pre-season testing as possible so they don't reveal their cards to the competitors too early.

Scuderia Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur told the media some time ago that the latest his team can do is the launch on the 13th of February.

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Then, the cars have to be transported to Bahrain for the pre-season testing that starts on February 21st. The team principal it would complicate the logistics if the team tried to push the car reveal date even further.

Probably due to very similar reasons, McLaren decided to reveal their car one day before Ferrari despite the fact it is already finished at this point in time, as the CEO of McLaren, Zak Brown, suggested.

What can we expect from the McLaren?

As opposed to the previous season, both Zak Brown and Andrea Stella expressed their confidence in the team's progress throughout the winter break.

McLaren went into the winter break as the second or the third fastest team on the grid, and it is quite possible the Papaya team might maintain this position.

Now, it will all depend on how big of a step forward were McLaren's rivals able to make throughout the winter. McLaren currently has 4 direct competitors as the battle of the top of the grid got super close over the last two seasons.

Stella suggested it would be tremendous for McLaren to start in second place. However, everybody would like to see at least one team challenge Red Bull for the first place. Could it be McLaren?