McLaren’s One-Off Singapore Livery Laughs At Red Bull’s Weight-Saving Measures

With Red Bull forced to cancel their fan-designed special livery due to concerns over added weight, McLaren has taken centre stage on media day by revealing a one-off paint job that harks back to the iconic red and white Marlboro designs of their late-century glory days. It’s a matter of micrograms in Formula 1 these days and a title fight only turns up the pressure. But their new white stripes, unlike Red Bull’s cancelled plans, merely swap one colour for another which evidently, McLaren thinks, will have no impact on their performance potential this weekend. They are the third team to announce a special design for the Singapore GP alongside RB’s denim-inspired look and Mercedes’ turquoise front wing stripe.

The new design forms the second part of McLaren's ‘Legend’s Reborn’ campaign which made its debut back in Monaco with a green and yellow Senna-inspired livery. This one, too, aims to pay homage to the Woking firm’s rise to the top of the F1 Championship and features the names of 13 legendary McLaren drivers, including the great Brazillian, in the cockpit area of the car. 

The first red and white, Malboro-branded McLaren was Emerson Fittipaldi's World Championship-winning car M23 in 1974. That year’s win marked McLaren’s first-ever championship, with the red and white livery gaining further fame as their trophy cabinet filled exponentially in the ‘MP4 era’ of the ‘80s and ‘90s. Hakkinen and Coulthard 1996, MP4/11 was the final use of this scheme. Papaya (aka #FF8000 to the designers of the world) then became the dominant livery in 2017 colour after a move to black-dominated cars in the early hybrid period.

Alongside the artistic homage, the scheme’s title sponsor harks back to the ethical dubiousness of the tobacco sponsorship era as it aims primarily to draw the eyes to the logo of  OKX, a cryptocurrency exchange and one of the team’s largest sponsors. McLaren’s Chief Marketing Officer, Louise McEwen, was predictably optimistic about the brand integration, “Following on from this year’s Senna campaign, this livery further embodies our partnership with OKX as we continue to deliver unique storytelling campaigns for McLaren fans and OKX customers globally.” 

I guess we’re talking about it, right? So maybe we’re the fools. McLaren holds a 20-point lead in the WDC, with Lando Norris 59 points behind Verstappen in the Driver’s. The newly white and orange MCL38 is expected to perform well in the high downforce, high-temperature conditions of the Marina Bay street circuit, but with the incredible competitiveness of F1 in the latter stages of 2024, it will take the drive of a champion for Lando Norris to make a significant dent in that 59 point gap.

At least if he doesn’t manage to cut that lead down, Lando can simply blame it on the added weight of the paint. Either way, we’ll get back to talking about the racing, rather than just the colour of the cars, after the Singapore GP gets underway on Sunday.