Many people were disappointed by the 2015 McLaren livery this season. Many felt that the revived McLaren-Honda partnership should mean the return of the red and white livery was in order. However, when the same old, Mercedes-inspired, chrome livery was put on the car, fans everywhere were let down. McLaren team principal, Ron Dennis, told fans that they wouldn’t change the livery unless a sponsor was willing to pay up. Now, we are seeing a new livery for the rest of the season, but not because the sponsors wanted it changed.
It was rumoured during the three week break, that the team would be running a new livery that would be revealed in Spain. These rumours were a result of some fake movie poster images that the team had posted on their social media profiles, with the title “Don’t Crack Under Pressure” and with slogans like “A legend returns” or “Driving your hero’s car”. Many expected that we would finally see the return of the red and white livery, however, that is not the case. Instead, the car will now feature a new grafite-grey colour scheme.
“We have revised our car’s livery, improving its visual impact, optimising it for not only bright sunshine but also for the floodlights increasingly used in twilight and night races.” McLaren told Racing Clothesline. “The result is a dynamic, predatory, graphite-grey colouration, complemented by McLaren-dayglo ‘Speedmarks’ and keylines, reducing the reflection issues caused by our latest chrome-silver treatment.”
The end result is quite a nice looking car, but the appeal of the car doesn’t win races. The change of the livery will hopefully act as a way to refresh their season. At the end of February, Éric Boullier, the McLaren racing director, said that the team should be competitive by May. Seeing as it is May, they will be expecting to see better performance than we have saw in the first part of the season. The new livery could be the symbol of a completely new and improved car and team. We will just have to wait and see during the Spanish Grand Prix this weekend.
