FIRST LOOK: McLaren present new F1 car ahead of Silverstone shakedown

McLaren have pulled the covers off their new F1 car, the MCL38, ahead of the 2024 season.

A month on from revealing their livery for the upcoming campaign, which again sports plenty of papaya orange, the Woking outfit staged a full car reveal on Wednesday morning.

GALLERY: Check out more angles of the new McLaren MCL38 challenger

With assets hitting their social channels at precisely 0838 GMT, as a nod to the car name, the machine Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri will race this year was presented to the world.

McLaren will be pushing to continue their recent upward trajectory with the MCL38, having turned around a poor start to 2023 via a major mid-season upgrade package that saw them go from struggling to score points to fighting for podium finishes.

Indeed, Andrea Stella’s squad rose to fourth in the constructors’ standings by the end of the year, behind Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari, having leapfrogged Aston Martin late on.

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In addition to a structural overhaul prior to those updates arriving on track, McLaren’s efforts for 2024 have also been boosted by a series of high-profile arrivals – namely ex-Red Bull engineering chief Rob Marshall and former Ferrari aerodynamic specialist David Sanchez.

McLaren’s online presentation will be followed by a shakedown with the MCL38 at Silverstone on Wednesday.

“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,” said McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown.

GALLERY: Check out more angles of the new McLaren MCL38 challenger

“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.”

Stella added: “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.

LIVE COVERAGE: All the latest as 2024 McLaren and Mercedes cars break cover

“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.”