McLaren 2024 car unveiling prompted ‘complete silence’ from journalists in the room

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Formula 1 journalists were surprised by the unveiling of McLaren’s 2024 livery earlier this week as the start of next season edges closer.

The car Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri will be driving in 2024 is the first to be revealed on the grid.

Speaking on The Race Podcast, journalist Ben Anderson has shared how the media reacted to seeing a remarkably similar livery to the one McLaren ran last year.

We’re about to enter the part of pre-season where every team reveals their car for the upcoming season.

McLaren’s official unveiling will take place on 14 February, while Sauber and Williams kick off the launch season on 5 February, subject to when AlphaTauri and Haas announce their new car.

It’s not always the most exciting part of pre-season with teams rarely springing many surprises.

The Ferrari is almost certainly going to be red, the Red Bull livery will end up looking the same as it does every year, while Aston Martin should be British racing green.

One team who could offer something new this year is Sauber – now Stake F1 Team – who will no longer run an Alfa Romeo-themed livery.

However, the journalists present at the unveiling of the McLaren didn’t have a huge amount to react to.

While they may not have been expecting to see the new car, what they were presented with was so similar to last year’s car that even Zak Brown couldn’t help but make a joke.

Journalists react to McLaren unveiling

Speaking about the event, Anderson said: “Suddenly everyone was ears pricked and having to get their game faces on to do full McLaren chat because this is all there’s going to be until we get going.

Colleague Edd Straw replied: “And you got to be shocked by the orange and black McLaren that looks basically the same as it did last year. It’s very nice but it’s not new.”

Anderson added: “Well, it was quite funny because they got Zak [Brown] and [Andrea] Stella to unveil the show car that was there on the stage and they peeled back the covers and to complete silence and Zak even said, ‘Hold your applause!’.

“And I was tempted to say, ‘Oh, well we’re all just stunned into silence’ but you’re right, it looks, let’s call it iterative in terms of the livery progression of last year to this year.”

McLaren’s latest unveiling was unlikely to give the journalists present a huge amount to react to.

The team have heavily leaned into their papaya and black branding and it wouldn’t make sense to abandon that now.

It’s a unique look on the grid, although we were unable to learn about any technical advancements the team have made based on what they shared this week.

That’s much more important in the grand scheme of things and fans will have to wait until next month to find out just how different the MCL38 is to the MCL60.