2022 - McLaren Formula 1 Team

[_cerber1]

McLaren plans to give the new MCL36 Formula 1 car its on-track debut just before the start of pre-season testing in Barcelona later this month.
https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/mclar ... t/8100999/

[Marc.W]

Randy having a bit of fun

[Ground Effect]

I had a go at "fixing" the McLaren livery:
https://i.imgur.com/zjCX1Ro.png

Perhaps such a design as the left is too plain and too boring for the talented McLaren graphic designers?

The use of light blue and unpainted carbon (or black) certainly gives a more fun characteristic to the livery!

The use of the light blue was due to the very positive reception that the Gulf livery had last year

What I meant was that there's no clear Mclaren signature. Each and every year it looks like creating the livery from scratch, there's no continuity. In my opinion, the small teams can afford to change it every year, but not Mclaren. Just take a look at '80s and' 90s, hell even '00s McL liveries, there's a constant pattern

Those were mainly sponsor driven, to be fair, PMI, West and Mercedes (Silver Arrows)

[Ground Effect]

Gary Anderson doesn't think the push-rod rear suspension makes any sense. (Source: The Race YouTube)

That must mean it makes perfect sense

Yep, because Gary Anderson doesn’t usually make sense,

[bauc]

McLaren plans to give the new MCL36 Formula 1 car its on-track debut just before the start of pre-season testing in Barcelona later this month.
https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/mclar ... t/8100999/

The car is still not fully ready and they are pushing hard so they can have the filming day.... Hmmm
This can be very good (pushing as hard as possible to the very last minute) or very bad (problems with production, quality, installation)

[bauc]

Gary Anderson doesn't think the push-rod rear suspension makes any sense. (Source: The Race YouTube)

That must mean it makes perfect sense

Yep, because Gary Anderson doesn’t usually make sense,

His score is pretty bad, every car he says looks great ends up at the bottom and vice versa, so we are on a good track then

[Ground Effect]

Gary Anderson doesn't think the push-rod rear suspension makes any sense. (Source: The Race YouTube)

That must mean it makes perfect sense

Yep, because Gary Anderson doesn’t usually make sense,

His score is pretty bad, every car he says looks great ends up at the bottom and vice versa, so we are on a good track then

Exactly! So there’s good reason to stay calm

[FittingMechanics]

Gary Anderson doesn't think the push-rod rear suspension makes any sense. (Source: The Race YouTube)

That must mean it makes perfect sense

Yep, because Gary Anderson doesn’t usually make sense,

Giorgio Piola thinks real Red Bull will use pushrod at the rear as well. https://it.motorsport.com/f1/news/f1-mc ... o/8104939/

I'm sure Gary Anderson will find understand by then.

[siskue2005]

Gary Anderson doesn't think the push-rod rear suspension makes any sense. (Source: The Race YouTube)

That must mean it makes perfect sense

Yep, because Gary Anderson doesn’t usually make sense,

Giorgio Piola thinks real Red Bull will use pushrod at the rear as well. https://it.motorsport.com/f1/news/f1-mc ... o/8104939/

I'm sure Gary Anderson will find understand by then.

The push rod at the rear will give more area for the diffuser, but wont that interupt flow to the beam wing? which in turn wont be able to suck out air from the diffuser.. hence whats the point?

[SmallSoldier]

I had a go at "fixing" the McLaren livery:
https://i.imgur.com/zjCX1Ro.png

Perhaps such a design as the left is too plain and too boring for the talented McLaren graphic designers?

The use of light blue and unpainted carbon (or black) certainly gives a more fun characteristic to the livery!

The use of the light blue was due to the very positive reception that the Gulf livery had last year

What I meant was that there's no clear Mclaren signature. Each and every year it looks like creating the livery from scratch, there's no continuity. In my opinion, the small teams can afford to change it every year, but not Mclaren. Just take a look at '80s and' 90s, hell even '00s McL liveries, there's a constant pattern

I guess there are a couple of considerations… On the one hand, the cars that carry over an identity, their liveries where driven by the title sponsor (for example, PMI or Vodafone) so there had to be certain consistency since it was all about driving a brand for the sponsor, that’s not the case today… On the other hand, times have also changed and the average McLaren fan belongs to a different era where unluckily the attention span is very (extremely) small… And just as for you the fact that there isn’t much continuity is a problem, for that generation continuity would mean “boring” or “uninspired” which isn’t the image that McLaren is trying to drive for their sponsors.

I personally see the livery as an evolution of previous ones, the black and orange MCL32, to a more predominantly “papaya” with little blue in the MCL33, to the MCL34 and MCL35 (MCL35M) that maintain a very similar “vibe” between them… The MCL36 seems to be another step in that branding… I like it and don’t mind the constant variation… Like it more than the likes of RBR where you know what the livery will look like before it even comes out

[JordanMugen]

Those were mainly sponsor driven, to be fair, PMI, West and Mercedes (Silver Arrows)

So why not simply paint the car in papaya, with or without blue accents, as Bruce McLaren did?



While the McLaren 2022 livery is very fun, it is just not very elegant IMO. How hard can it be to just get some papaya paint and paint the car as below? It works for Aston Martin after all, a simple green livery with a bit of a yellow stripe and all the sponsors on the green background -- too easy and everyone loves it!

“boring” or “uninspired” which isn’t the image that McLaren is trying to drive for their sponsors.

The problem with Indycar, NASCAR or touring car liveries that change every season for no reason, with different stripes and colours for no particular reason, is that later on it is almost impossible to work out which season is which!

Is that the 2019 West Surrey Racing BMW, is that the 2020 West Surrey Racing BMW, or is that the 2021 West Surrey Racing BMW... Who knows?!


[Of all entities, BMW M have a very recognisable livery (here in traditional form at the Bathurst 12 hour on the M6 GT3), so why you would mess around with other stripes and base colours despite having exactly the same sponsors -- who knows!]

So if you have a good design, or just a simple painted car in the case of Ferrari and McLaren, why not just keep it the same?

2021 Ferrari livery will be remembered for all the wrong reasons "that's the one with the ugly burgundy bit at the rear of the car for no reason", but all the other red liveries with red wings from 2018-2020 fit together nicely in a series.

The core goals of recognisable team identity and sponsor legibility often seem to be forgotten by livery designers! Black writing on a light blue background is hard to read and is not a particularly good choice -- black on orange is better, white on black is better (but it is a McLaren not an Orange Arrows, Renault also went off the rails with a predominantly black car instead of predominantly in their team colour yellow), white on dark blue is better.

Of course it could be worse, so us fans (who would expect a car manufacturer, as opposed to some Rallycross racer, to have a more elegant livery) can't complain!

[PlatinumZealot]

Too much black & not enough orange for me...

I like the black stripe on the back. It's a nice area to line out those sponsor logos.

The baby blue? I guess the fans like the Gulf livery so much McLaren just had to implement that blue in there. It's nicer than the regular blue to me maybe because it appears brighter.

I notice they have two liveries though. The black and orange one and the blue and orange livery.

[SmallSoldier]

Those were mainly sponsor driven, to be fair, PMI, West and Mercedes (Silver Arrows)

So why not simply paint the car in papaya, with or without blue accents, as Bruce McLaren did?

https://cdn-1.motorsport.com/images/mgl ... aren-1.jpg

While the McLaren 2022 livery is very fun, it is just not very elegant IMO. How hard can it be to just get some papaya paint and paint the car as below? It works for Aston Martin after all, a simple green livery with a bit of a yellow stripe and all the sponsors on the green background -- too easy and everyone loves it!

https://cdn-1.motorsport.com/static/img ... center.jpg

https://www.formula1.com/content/dam/fo ... /image.jpg

“boring” or “uninspired” which isn’t the image that McLaren is trying to drive for their sponsors.

The problem with Indycar, NASCAR or touring car liveries that change every season for no reason, with different stripes and colours for no particular reason, is that later on it is almost impossible to work out which season is which!

Is that the 2019 West Surrey Racing BMW, is that the 2020 West Surrey Racing BMW, or is that the 2021 West Surrey Racing BMW... Who knows?!

https://i.imgur.com/Z6XqFNf.png
[Of all entities, BMW M have a very recognisable livery (here in traditional form at the Bathurst 12 hour on the M6 GT3), so why you would mess around with other stripes and base colours despite having exactly the same sponsors -- who knows!]

So if you have a good design, or just a simple painted car in the case of Ferrari and McLaren, why not just keep it the same?

2021 Ferrari livery will be remembered for all the wrong reasons "that's the one with the ugly burgundy bit at the rear of the car for no reason", but all the other red liveries with red wings from 2018-2020 fit together nicely in a series.

The core goals of recognisable team identity and sponsor legibility often seem to be forgotten by livery designers! Black writing on a light blue background is hard to read and is not a particularly good choice -- black on orange is better, white on black is better (but it is a McLaren not an Orange Arrows, Renault also went off the rails with a predominantly black car instead of predominantly in their team colour yellow), white on dark blue is better.

Of course it could be worse, so us fans (who would expect a car manufacturer, as opposed to some Rallycross racer, to have a more elegant livery) can't complain!
https://www.indycar.com/-/media/IndyCar ... a=en&w=940

The funny thing with taste is that… It isn’t the same for everyone… For example, I wasn’t a fan of the test livery in 97 and don’t think I would like the car in a livery that is only orange… I guess that you will never be able to please everyone when it comes to liveries.

In regards to not knowing which car is which with livery changes, I guess that it will depend on how big of a fan of a particular team you are and how successful that car is in a particular season (for example, everyone recognizes the Brawn GP car (even with no heritage or history behind that livery)… I may be able to tell most Mclaren liveries from the 90’s, 00’s and 10’s and while I could easily recognize the MCL32,33,34,35,35M and 36) I would have hard time with the MP4-26 and MP4-27 since they were very similar from a livery perspective (if we don’t consider the sidepods of the MP4-26).

[Emag]

Was re-watching some of the older races for fun, and this one got me a bit nostalgic ...



Will we experience the thrill of starting a season as title contenders again I wonder? It's been so long

[SmallSoldier]

Was re-watching some of the older races for fun, and this one got me a bit nostalgic ...

https://i.imgur.com/ZbFZYrk.png

Will we experience the thrill of starting a season as title contenders again I wonder? It's been so long

Dreaming is free, right?

I really with that would be the case, but I’m keeping my expectations low… Much rather be surprised than disappointed