McLaren kicks off F1's 2025 launch season with MCL39

McLaren has become the first Formula 1 team to unveil its 2025 car as the MCL39 hit the track at Silverstone.

The 2024 constructors’ championship winning team is running its new car as part of a filming day, with the MCL39 appearing in a camo livery ahead of the revealing of its 2025 design at the F1 75 event next week. Lando Norris was first to drive the car at the home of the British Grand Prix on a cold Thursday morning, with Oscar Piastri set to take over from him later in the day.

McLaren Racing director Zak Brown says the target is to win both the drivers’ and constructors’ titles this year after last season’s team success.

“Today is a big milestone in our journey in the fight for the 2025 title,” Brown said. “It’s great to get our championship challenger, the MCL39, on track for the first time and to launch the culmination of the team’s hard work.

“We must be realistic that every team will have made progress over the winter. Last year highlighted just how much the grid has closed up, which is a brilliant thing for the sport. We believe we have made further steps forward since the championship-winning MCL38 but we won’t know where we sit in the standings until we get into qualifying in Australia.

“We’re a team that never stops racing and we’ll be giving it our all to bring both championships back to Woking.”

Team principal Andrea Stella believes the entire grid is set to be even closer than it was in 2024, but says McLaren will be stronger for its experience last season,

“We are excited to see the MCL39 hit the track for the first time at Silverstone Circuit today,” Stella said. “Whilst we finished last year as champions, 2024 highlighted how highly competitive the grid is, which is something that will carry through to this year’s championship. We therefore must keep focused to compete at the front in this tight field. It’s going to be an exciting but incredibly challenging year ahead.

“The team have worked extremely hard to prepare as best as possible for the start of the season. We learned a lot from our battles last year, so we take this and use it to push our goal for the year.

“My thanks go to the entire team for their work to get the car ready for today, as well as our colleagues at Mercedes HPP for their continued collaboration. We now focus on the work ahead to ensure we maximize our time in testing before the first competitive session in Australia.”