McLaren adds chrome throwback to British GP livery

McLaren will run flashes of its popular old chrome livery for the British Grand Prix at Silverstone.

McLaren’s last championship was won by Lewis Hamilton in 2008, driving a car in the famous chrome and red Vodafone-sponsored livery.

After years running the red and white of Marlboro, McLaren changed to the silver of engine partner Mercedes in 1997 and then chrome in 2006, which remained on the car until Zak Brown took over as CEO in 2016.

Brown has taken the team back to the papaya colour founder Bruce McLaren first ran with.

The chrome flashes, which tie in with team sponsor Google, were welcomed by driver Lando Norris, who became a fan of McLaren watching F1 in the mid-2000s.

Norris, signed by McLaren at an early age, joked that it’s the colour of car he’s always wanted to drive.

Norris joked that he asked Brown for a chrome livery when he was named a race driver for 2019. “It was one of the first things I probably said to him.

“I’m pretty sure from what I remember it was when he showed me the livery that we were going to have for 2019, and he asked me ‘what would you change on the car?” and I was like ‘the whole thing!’.

“Just because for me, walking down the boulevard [at McLaren’s factory], as much as I would like the white and bright orange — that livery was amazing — I think just there’s no other car nowadays that is like the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes that we had back then.

“That’s what I grew up watching, that’s what I fell in love with in many ways. I feel like I can say it, it inspired me to be a Formula One driver.”

McLaren changed its logo on social media from papaya to chrome on Monday morning, leading to a buzz on about a full throwback livery.

Brown said he was keen to keep the new papaya colour as the predominant one.

“We’re really trying to build our association with papaya, much like Ferrari’s red and Mercedes have their colour identity.”