Posted on 3rd February 2017
It was announced this morning that the McLaren-Honda team has dropped the “MP4” prefix from the name of its future F1 cars after deciding to call its 2017 car MCL32.
The MP4 name stood for “Marlboro Project Four” and was introduced by former CEO Ron Dennis when he merged his F2 team, Project Four Racing, with McLaren in 1981. Since then each new car’s name had the prefix “MP4” followed by a type number in ascending order.
Last year’s car was named the MP4-31, but following the departure of Dennis at the helm of the team, McLaren has decided to switch its car nomenclature to include the prefix MCL. The name change appears to be the first stage of a rebranding exercise that is also likely to see a radical change to the team's livery this year; with rumours flying around that the colour orange might be brought back.
The McLaren MCL32 will be launched on February 24.
Sarah Jones- @jonesy_laaa
