If you’re still having trouble associating orange with McLaren’s Formula 1 team, allow us to take you back to the late 1960’s when the British outfit became a winning force.
McLaren first switched to an orange livery in F1 in 1968, inspired by rival liveries in Can-Am sports cars. The color was short lived, as they went with a predominantly white paint scheme in 1972, but by then, the team had already won at Spa, Monza and Mont-Tremblant.
Right now, McLaren-Honda is using an orange and black livery, but next year they could opt for the Papaya option, like on the car Fernando Alonso drove at the Indy 500 this year.
The decision also depends on the outcome of ongoing talks with potential 2018 sponsors, reports F1i.
“We are starting to look at car designs now,” said McLaren’s Zak Brown. “I think the fans want us to go to Papaya Orange for sure. When we did the IndyCar we had an overwhelming amount of ‘Please make your F1 car like that’. We are waiting on a few sponsor decision which also can dictate what a car looks like. I wouldn’t rule it out.”
Still, unlike Force India, McLaren won’t re-brand its livery completely just to suit a single sponsor.
“We have all sorts of designs going on, but we need to see where we land on some of the sponsor activity and that will dictate a bit of that,” added Brown.
“We would like to keep some orange. We think it is part of our identity, especially moving forward. But we are a commercial entity. Pink might be a bit extreme though.”
As for these Papaya Orange renderings, courtesy of Sean Bull Design, they’re all predominantly orange, although some have more black than others, while one of them features some blue as well. Which do you like best?
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