Ben Hunt: McLaren flicked his muscles to kick the F1 launch season

This was a rare thing these days. A team hosting a team in-purson car launch, instead of suppressing ‘send’ on an email, to make some-made-ups from their drivers and present images of its F1 car.

It was also rare that it was the world champion squad that would be first to cover its new challenger for the first season.

Such respect is usually taken by one of the teams behind the grid, eager to achieve some much more essential media exposure – but not this time.

The 2025 F1 season is officially running and out of front, defending constructs champion team, McLarenHe MCL39 launched on Thursday at Silverstone In front of F1 media, not hidden on a private test track.

Apparently, the construction of the launch event was kept away from social media to prevent fans from a herd in Hilton Hotel, which is adjacent to the Silverstone Wing Complex, which keeps the garage of the teams, but otherwise it is your old It was a specific launch.

A pitti observation but, reading between lines, McLaren is confident in the new campaign. And the reason for this is.

By going first, and therefore prominently, it can be seen by McLaren as some flakes, which can be given more evidence by the comments of its team’s principal Andrea Stella, because the autosport prepared his team before the new season. Asked about

The Italian, which came with a clear warning in the 2023 season, was more positive in the 2024 campaign to struggle to be competitive.

But for 2025, there is even more change in optimism. Despite being united, a “innovative” approach to design philosophy was “relatively challenging approach”, Stela is remarkably excited with her expectations.

Stela said, “What can I say in the context of entering the 2025 season, I am happy that we can maintain the rate of development in the last two years.”

“The 2025 car on paper should be a decent step ahead. But if I look from far away, I think this step is really on a linear tendency for some other upgradation or developments to move forward that we took in 2023. And then in 2024.

“This 2025 car, at least we see in our numbers, must be with this line, which is good news. This means that we have not run out of steam. ,

Stela has obtained the right way for McLaren’s incredible trajectory in the last two sessions. However, there have also been a painful lessons, as the team won the last year’s British GP and took a controversial decision to swap the race-rank. Lando Noris With Oscar Piastry during Hungarian GP.

On reflection, McLaren should have preferred the battle of Noris in the drivers’ championships.

The season was one of McLaren learning the message and Stela says that the team actually studied its failures and also understood why it was capable of winning.

He said: “The most important thing, firstly, is culture. You need principles, you need a mentality to deal with missed opportunities.

“We have done a lot of work to ensure that as a team, when there is an opportunity to be an opportunity, while it can be painful in short term or moment, because it means that you have lost some points or you have silverstone Like a possible victory can lose.

“At the same time it becomes a great opportunity to improve, whether it is a personal improvement or a group improvement, or a team improvement.

“So, of course, as a team principal for me, a lot of my efforts have gone to establish such a mindset, which is a positive mentality towards missed opportunities.

“You mentioned missing opportunities, but in fact, when things go well, there is still a lot to consolidate. You have to understand why things have gone well, instead of thinking, it is because I am good.

“Okay, you better check why things went well. So it is a ethos, it is a cultural element above all. ,

McLaren seems to be seen in good shape and the noise from the team is positive. Nevertheless, despite the return to this rare, and clearly a traditional launch event, as usual, we won’t know how quick McLeren is to qualify for the opener in Melbourne next month.