One of the biggest talking points surrounding the reveal of any new F1 car is livery. Will it be a carbon copy of last year with little discernible change, or has someone been allowed to run wild in the paint shop? Whatever the scale of transformation, livery is always near the top of the agenda come launch season.
Although we’ve upheld our striking papaya and blue for 2021, we’ve had our fair share of liveries over the years and this means we’ve raced in a spectrum of colours not far off the array that feature on Joseph’s Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. And just to clarify, before you conjure up visions of Will Joseph – Lando’s race engineer – rocking around the MTC in a kaleidoscope of colour, we don’t mean that ‘Joseph’.
Fashion choices of McLaren team members aside, the real question is: just how well do you know the colours that have played a part in McLaren’s iconic history?
As always, there’s only one way to find out...
Eschewing the tradition of competing in national colours, the first McLaren F1 car sported white and green. What was the ulterior motive for this debut livery?
1974 saw the introduction of a colour combination that would remain on the car for over two decades, what was it?
New partners meant wholesale changes to the livery for 1997, but can you name the new colourway?
Chrome became a thing of the past partway through the 2015 season, what shade of grey adorned the car in 2016?
