McLaren unveil MCL38 F1 2024 car tipped to fight Red Bull

McLaren have shown off their F1 2024 car - the MCL38 - for the first time.

The Woking team hope to carry on the good form shown last year to establish themselves as Red Bull’s closest competition this season.

The MCL38, in its team’s traditional papaya, is an evolution of the 2023 car which underwent such transformative upgrades midway through last year.

Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, the highly-rated driver duo that McLaren have clung onto, strung together impressive performances at the back end of 2023.

Norris earned seven podium finishes after McLaren upgraded his car, while Piastri won the Qatar sprint race.

Zak Brown, the McLaren CEO, has tied Norris down to a long-term big-money contract to ensure his future.

Brown said about their car launch: “It’s awesome to be able to launch our 2024 competitor, the MCL38, at Silverstone today. It’s great to see our new car in its 2024 livery on track and see the hard work and dedication of the team come together.  

“The fantastic thing about this sport is how competitive it is, and therefore we must remain realistic as every team will have made progress in the off season. 

"The true test of whether we’ve made steps in the right direction will be qualifying in Bahrain. We’re all excited to go racing again, but we know there’s a long season ahead of us and a lot of work still to do to ensure we build on the progress we made throughout 2023.” 

Andrea Stella, Team Principal, said: “The team are excited to present the MCL38 today and to see it on track for the first time. Going into this year, we look to build on the momentum of last season but are realistic in the knowledge that every team will have made progress and found competitiveness for their 2024 cars. 

"We now have everything in place from an infrastructure, people and culture perspective so we continue to push forward and build on the work done to get us back to front of the grid.  

“Before we hit the track for competitive sessions, we have a lot of work to do, including putting the MCL38 through its paces during the Bahrain pre-season test. 

"The team has done a good job over the winter, and we are confident we can hit the ground running, but we know we have important tasks at hand before the season starts. There are a number of innovations on the car, but not all the areas we want to address have been completed for our launch-spec car. Those areas now become the focus of our in-season development, which is already in progress. 

“My thanks go to the entire team, both trackside and at MTC and MRC for their great efforts in ensuring the car was ready to hit the track today, as well as our colleagues at Mercedes HPP for their continued collaboration. We now turn our attention to the long season ahead as we look forward to Bahrain Testing next week.” 

Lando Norris said: “I’m excited to get behind the wheel of the MCL38 and see how it runs. The livery looks great on the new car, so it’s fun to be able to get out on track today.  

“I’m looking forward to shaking the car down in Bahrain. I have full confidence in the team that we’ll continue pushing forward off the back of the turnaround last season. However, the true test of our progress is coming up when we put the car through its paces in testing, ahead of then qualifying and racing for the Bahrain Grand Prix.  

“Over the past few weeks I’ve been back at the MTC putting a lot of work in on the simulator with my engineering team to ensure that we’re fully prepared ahead of next week. Thank you to everyone trackside and at the factory for their work to get us to this point. I’m excited to get to Bahrain and go racing again.” 

Oscar Piastri said: “It’s great to be able to drive the MCL38 on track for the first time today. It’s an important milestone in our development for the year and I’m excited to see it on track in its new livery.  

“We won’t know where we stand in terms of competitiveness until we go racing in Bahrain, but we’ve been preparing as best as we possibly can by spending time in the simulator, working closely with everyone who’s designed, built and will run the car to ensure we’re ready to start strongly. 

“I’m looking forward to the next few weeks leading into a busy year. A massive thank you to the team for everything they’ve done so far to prepare us for 2024. I’m really excited to properly kick off my second season in F1.”