On its home soil, McLaren will run a special chromed livery. A tribute to the famous McLaren chrome era.
McLaren unveiled today, July 3rd, a special livery ahead of the British Grand Prix that will take place this weekend. In partnership with Google Chrome, team sponsor, the classic chrome silver joins the papaya orange on the car.
The first car with Chrome silver was unveiled in 2006 and is famously associated with title sponsor Vodafone. Their partnership lasted between from 2007 to 2013.
It is iconic for Lewis Hamilton’s first World Drivers’ Championship, as well as many other wins and podiums. The chrome stayed on the car for 2014, as the team started the hybrid era with Mercedes.As Honda joined the team in 2015, the chrome silver was switched to a black car, ending the association of silver as McLaren’s color.The new chrome livery is part of McLaren’s 60th-anniversary celebrations. Earlier this year, the team raced the “Triple Crown” livery at the Monaco and Spanish GPs and had four different liveries, representing their three maiden wins at the Triple Crown, at the 107th running of the Indy 500.“It’s no secret that racing fans love McLaren’s classic chrome livery,” said McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown. “Google Chrome wanted to bring back elements of this iconic livery to celebrate our team’s history at the British Grand Prix, and we’re excited to be able to give our fans what they want.
“I’m sure this livery will bring back great memories for many of our fans, and I can’t wait to see it out on track at our home race.”Lando Norris, from the moment he joined the team in 2017 as a junior driver, kept asking Zak Brown to have a chrome livery. The Brit explained the memories he gets from it, especially the battle between Hamilton and Alonso back in 2007.“I’m pretty sure, from what I remember, it was when he first showed me the livery that we were going to have for 2019 and he asked me what I’d change, and I said ‘The whole thing’. That livery was amazing, and that’s what I grew up watching. It’s kind of what I fell in love with, in many ways.
“I feel I can say that it inspired me to be a Formula 1 driver because before that I was more into MotoGP, motorbikes, motocross, quad biking. That’s what I loved to begin with, and I didn’t really know much about racing. And then I got into watching some Formula 1, and it was Lewis versus Fernando, even though they were in the same team, and that’s what I really fell in love with.
“So I’m getting to relive that. As I say, every year I’ve been pestering him a little bit, that I want to go back a little bit in this direction.
“I know it’s just for one race, but it’s kind of cool to relive a little bit of what got me into Formula 1 in some ways, also knowing it’s a very historic part of McLaren, and it was very successful, with Lewis winning his first world championship.”“I grew up watching McLaren in its chrome era back in the late 2000s, early 2010s,” said Oscar Piastri.
“So to have my own chrome McLaren is going to be really exciting. It looks great. It’s got a nice amount of papaya on there, keeping the brand’s image going forward, but I think it looks really good.”
Zak Brown said that, by the FIA regulations, McLaren would not be allowed another complete change of livery. But he also thinks that the ‘papaya identity’ is really important to McLaren under his management and that weight would be a problem in a full-chrome livery:“We could have gone further if we wanted to. But the papaya is very important to us.“Back when the car was chrome before it had Vodafone’s rocket red, obviously that was more chrome than this. But you also need to take things into consideration like weight, where we still have the carbon fibre. So it was a combination of rationale to get there. But the lead one was we don’t want to lose our papaya identity.
“It’s very important to us that we’re kind of doing a nod to the past, but also very much look forward to the future. “There’s also so many times you can change the livery into one of the extremes.”
Google’s Vice-President of Marketing, Nick Drake, said:
“It’s been a privilege for the Google Chrome team to work with McLaren on bringing back elements of an iconic livery to inspire this takeover. We were delighted with the fans’ reaction to the branded wheel covers that introduced our partnership, and now Google Chrome is putting chrome back on the McLaren for its home race.
“We’re looking forward to Silverstone and hope all McLaren fans enjoy what promises to be a really exciting weekend of racing.”
