The build up to that reveal may have been one of my favourites of all time. Not only did we get to see Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo together, but we also got to see Daniel rapping and Lando absolutely crushing it on a guitar (who would have known).
Hosted in front of a select digital crowd at the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking, the launch of the new MCL35M was a much more simplified announcement compared to recent years but still an impressive one. In the build up to the reveal we saw emotional messages from Daniel’s family in Australia and even one of Lando’s ex-mechanics who recalled a great story of having to Velcro the brit into his seat to stop him sliding around!
But the highlight of the build-up was undoubtedly the two drivers heading to a music studio to come up with a new McLaren theme song. We saw everything in this section from Norris revealing he listens to a song called tortoise repeatedly before a race, to Daniel stating that he wants to start a band now, to the pair rapping a section (to varied degrees of success).
All this increased the excitement for the launch and when the time came there was an overwhelming consensus, so what’s different? That being said, we were not expecting a complete change with the 2020 cars being homologated for 2021 but even still there initially appeared to be no difference at all! A brief explanation of the difference made during the installation of the brand-new Mercedes power unit showed that the rear barge boards have been made more tapered and are shorter thanks to the smaller size of the Mercedes powertrain.
It does still look remarkably similar to last year’s effort however if you ask me, if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it! It was one of the best-looking cars on the grid last year and looks like it could well be one of the best this year as well.
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