McLaren have revealed another updated livery for their MCL60 that will be used for the East Asian leg of the 2023 Formula 1 season.
The ‘Stealth Mode’ design will be debuted at this weekend’s Singapore Grand Prix, the first night race on the calendar. It will be used again at Suzuka which will host the Japanese Grand Prix next week.Team partner OKX has co-designed the livery with McLaren. It swaps around some of the car’s usual colours, meaning panels are papaya when usually black and vice versa. The unveiling took place at a hotel in Singapore ahead of the grand prix, with McLaren’s drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri in attendance.
There will be ‘Stealth Mode’-specification team merchandise made available for a limited amount of time.
McLaren Racing’s CEO Zak Brown commented: ”Stealth Mode flips our race car’s colours, bringing something exciting and different to these two great races in Singapore and Japan. We hope fans will love it as much as we do and get a chance to enjoy the fan zone to connect with our team.”
It is not the first time this year that McLaren have run with event-specific liveries. It used a ‘Triple Crown’-inspired design at the Monaco and Spanish grands prix, and a chrome-coloured livery for the British Grand Prix. The team also ran a special livery at last year’s Singapore and Japanese grands prix.
They are also not the only team revising their regular design for Singapore. Williams are running a livery this weekend which utilises the orange and light blue from the logo of their sponsor Gulf rather than their usual dark blue base colour.
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HAL
13th September 2023, 10:50
Design works fine. But shouldn’t F1 impose 1 layer of pain on all body elementz to avoid all teams going “Black+ a bit of color” ? If the team can gain some weight, of course, they will all seize the opportunity, especially with these heavy cars.
But all cars end up with more an more unpainted part, not great, imho…
AlanD
13th September 2023, 13:18
Hal, yes, I think that design looks quite eye-catching, but if every team went black to save paint weight then it wouldn’t be a good thing. In the history of GP racing, am I right in thinking that the original Mercedes “silver arrows” of the 1930s were silver because they were unpainted aluminum? I think someone said that was to save weight, though I don’t know if there is any truth in that. I can also recall seeing a photo once of, I think, the very first Matra F1 car, an exceptionally ugly car, which was a sort of beige green because it was the first race of the season, and there had been such a rush to finish the car and get it shipped that they didn’t have time to finish the paint job so it was the green colour of the primer coat.
Chris Lloyd (@chrisr1718)
13th September 2023, 22:41
The story about Mercedes being silver has been debunked many times. It referred to the Mercedes W25 being 1kg over weight. Removing the white paint saved exactly 1kg. However, there has never been any photos of the W25 in its, alleged, white livery.
MacLeod (@macleod)
13th September 2023, 14:07
Unpainted saves 2-3 kg on a car so expect a boost for mcLaren.
AlanD
13th September 2023, 14:48
Are the cars above the minimum weight these days? If so, it is a genuine weight saving. If not, it means they’d have to add an extra 3kg of ballast, so some advantage because they can position the weight lower, but not an outright weight gain.
Dutchguy (@justarandomdutchguy)
13th September 2023, 11:03
It’s fine. tad boring but nothing offensive
Mostly it’s just a testament to how ugly their regular livery is this year and past year because everything else they’ve done so far this year is miles better (IMO).
MacLeod (@macleod)
13th September 2023, 14:07
They do it to save weight and getting performance in return…..
Tommy Scragend
13th September 2023, 11:03
More black. Yay.
CarWars (@maxv)
13th September 2023, 11:58
yeah a lot of work must have gone into this.. lets remove all color..
dot_com (@dot_com)
13th September 2023, 13:37
They should just call this the ‘slightly less orange’ livery.
Dex
13th September 2023, 11:54
I wish you could just design a livery and stick to it for the entire season, or change it for a reason (like new sponsorship). Constant playing around with liveries is kinda… Meh. Grab my attention with something better, like good racing (which is actually not going so bad at the moment). There’s nothing special in a special design, if there’s always a new special design. Though this one looks more serious than the past few liveries, which to me looked garish and childish a bit, like something that came out of a video game (I play games, nothing against that, this is just a different context). Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer elegance over that.
StephenH
13th September 2023, 12:03
An excuse to have even less paint. Can’t they at least make their stickers luminous or something ??
Jere (@jerejj)
13th September 2023, 12:07
Just more black.
R.A.M.
13th September 2023, 14:11
The last good (not great, just good) Mclaren livery was on the 2019 car. Since then, they have constantly been the ugliest car on the grid.
Mclaren, fire the 21 year old kid designing these stupid liveries and hire a professional.
GeeMac (@geemac)
13th September 2023, 14:24
That is the same livery McLaren, you are not fooling anyone.
Wes
13th September 2023, 15:26
This one is much better than their livery at the start of the season but my biggest gripe is still present: the Google Chrome colored wheels. None of those colors match their car livery and it is the ugliest clash of colors. I like that it is far less busy than the original, though. I like the sort of black and orange version of the Marlboro livery at the front. But damn those rims need to be black or orange and not four bright colors that match nothing on the rest of the car!
X1Znet (@x1znet)
13th September 2023, 16:05
There are no nicotine brands in this livery.
Jim from US (@jimfromus)
13th September 2023, 16:50
Spinal Tap thinks there’s too much orange.
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
13th September 2023, 20:19
Crunch! “Sorry mate, didn’t see you in the dark.”
I’m looking forward to seeing the Williams under lights. But not this.
AlanD
14th September 2023, 1:22
I was looking at some old footage on youtube today and the silver McLaren livery looked great. Looking at these photos, the black areas have clear striations. I wonder if the directions of those striations is chosen to create an additional aerodynamic effect, speeding up the flow across the skin in some parts, slowing it down in others?
Rhys Lloyd (@justrhysism)
14th September 2023, 4:51
Odd colour choice for a night race…
Asd
14th September 2023, 11:59
A night race under a million of super powerful lights.