McLaren launches its 2017 F1 car: The MCL32

After much speculation and some clues given out by Zak brown, we can finally confirm that their car for this year the MCL32 will be significantly orange. The naming scheme has also changed after running the MP4 tag for almost 4 decades.

The car looks bright with the new orange and black combination. The barge boards have a unique shape. While the black color disguises the sidepods, they seem to be narrow and aggressively shaped.

Honda returned to the sport in 2014 and had a very difficult couple of years. They did see some improvement in 2015. But they were no where near the front of the grid.

The shark fin has also made a comeback on the MCL32 which looks subdued because of the livery. At the front there are multiple slots in the nose which is quite different. We can also see an S-duct present on the nose.

The air intake seems smaller and the rear wing looks very aggressive. McLaren have retained the 2 Time World Champion, Fernando Alonso for 2017. He’ll be racing next to a rookie in Stoffel Vandoorne who already scored points last year for McLaren.

Honda are said to have adopted a new design line for the MCL32. The engine is said to have undergone a complete overhaul. The approach makes the power unit have a lower center of gravity and also be very light weight.

Zak Brown, The CEO of McLaren said at launch, “We’ve had so much outreach from the fans, saying ‘We want to have some orange, we want to have some orange.

“The team is highly frustrated, everyone wants to get back to winning championships. Once we get there we’ll be pretty hard to knock back down.I think we have everything we need, we just need a little time and patience.”, he added.

The last two years have been pretty disappointing for McLaren fans all over the world. The regulation change and removal of the token system should help McLaren get better through the season. We might just see the MCL32 somewhere at the front of the grid this year.