Ahead of this weekend's Spanish Grand Prix, McLaren has given fans a sneak peek at its revised livery.

The change of livery, which sees the team drop the previous chrome effect, was explained to Pitpass yesterday, a team spokesman telling us: "We have revised our car's livery, improving its visual impact, optimising it for not only bright sunshine but also for the floodlights increasingly used in twilight and night races.

"The result is a dynamic, predatory, graphite-grey colouration, complemented by McLaren-dayglo 'Speedmarks' and keylines, reducing the reflection issues caused by our latest chrome-silver treatment."

It's certainly a bit more noticeable, courtesy of the “dayglow Speedmarks” and a little less grey.

When talk of a livery change first began, the result of the team's move from Mercedes power to Honda, many fans hoped for a return to the 'old' day-glo and white (Marlboro) colours associated with the previous partnership, whilst others even mooted a return to the original Gulf (Oil) orange. Ron Dennis was quick to dismiss the idea.

"We've got the same thing inside (McLaren)," he revealed. "You've got people who say 'Why don't we make it orange?', and I say, 'Why?' 'That was the old colour of McLaren', they reply.

"Why the hell do we want to go backwards?" he continued. "What do you do? Do you create an aesthetically pleasing design? For what purpose?

"This is the livery of McLaren," he insisted, "it's always been a combination of these colours, and it will only change for commercial reasons. It won't change just to make a few people in the company happier because they want it orange, or they want it yellow.

"We tried to put a bit more of our real colour, which is day-glo… fluorescent red is our colour. We've got more heritage in fluorescent red than any other colour. But again what I prefer to do is put a stylish design and as we evolve. It will be far more recognised if we suddenly come out with a light green car for the following reason, you'll all go, yeah they've got a big amount of money coming in."
When it was pointed out that the chrome colour of the car seemingly reflects previous partner Mercedes as opposed to new partner Honda, he snapped: "The car's got a minimal amount of mirroring on it, I wouldn't even call it silver.

"Yes we could change colour," he concluded, "yes we could do something more daring, we could all these things, but give me a reason why? And if it's just to be aesthetically more pleasing, that's not enough reason to me."

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by Hondawho?, 10/05/2015 12:13

"Difficult !"

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2. Posted by Hondawho?, 10/05/2015 12:13

"Very very Foucault to see the McLaren in the race, just about being able to see the bottom of the mankini strips but apart from that hardly able to make them out from the rest!"

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3. Posted by Nortim, 08/05/2015 16:27

"Big NO!"

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4. Posted by BillH, 07/05/2015 18:59

"Last year Sauber had a similar main colour and on the telly it looked dull. This years Sauber looks a lot better.
I ran this McLaren livery past a nearly 12 year old: not impressed, the stripes look like an attempted flame job.
Personally I'm neither for or against this livery, at least for the Partners their logos do stand out."

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5. Posted by Hondawho?, 07/05/2015 15:09

"3. Posted by RaltMan, 12 hours ago

No worries Raltman, I am glad you like the description.

HW"

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6. Posted by Paul C, 07/05/2015 5:14

"It looks like it was inspired by Star Wars and Darth Vader. If McLaren needs a sponsor, they need to call Disney, the owners of the Star Wars franchise. RD & Boullier can dress up as the Emperor and Darth Vader."

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7. Posted by TheBucketOfTruth, 07/05/2015 4:44

"I hate to say it but this one is worse. That extra swoosh higher up on the nose is way too much, and I'm missing the way the lower one used to tie in to the red mirrors that are now absent. He said he would only really change the livery for a new sponsor, but here we are and the car has become more grey and worse for it."

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8. Posted by RaltMan, 07/05/2015 3:11

"Imagine if the cut the nose off just ahead of the "mankini" (sorry for stealing HondaWho?, but I love the apt description) closest to the cockpit. It'd look like an 80's chassis. I miss the beauty of those cars before we got the abomination of noses and wings we have today."

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9. Posted by gturner38, 06/05/2015 20:46

"I'm not sure it's a great livery, but I do see where Ron is coming from with regards to the red versus orange. People want the cars to be orange on the basis of some cars in the 60s and early 70s, but McLaren's partnerships with Texaco, Marlboro, and West put red on the car for over 40 years predating the involvement of Project 4 and covering most of their success. On the issue of people wanting red and white ala the Marlboro era, Marlboro already pays for exposure through Ferrari. McLaren doesn't need to give them better exposure.

I do wonder why we pulled out comments Ron made 3 months ago, particularly with respect to the silver/pewter that has been removed. Would simply showing pictures of the car not stirred enough controversy?"

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10. Posted by Damo57, 06/05/2015 18:52

"If something looks like ****, it usually is ****. This supposed colour scheme is ...****. RD had a chance to do a very small thing to provide some pleasure to a lot of fans....so what did he do? Put two fingers up instead.....sad really as I've always supposed Ron to be a smart guy."

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11. Posted by F One, 06/05/2015 18:16

"Somehow it manages to be even more tedious than the previous one was.
Ron's so full of nonsense."

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12. Posted by Darvi, 06/05/2015 16:00

"Good old Ron..... he says "Why do we want to look backwards" and then says "We've got more heritage in fluorescent red than any other colour".... so do you want to look backwards or not? I wonder if Ron actually believes all this tosh.

One final comment...... He says "What do you do? Do you create an aesthetically pleasing design? For what purpose?" Er, because its aesthetically pleasing..... that is exactly the point!"

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13. Posted by REV77, 06/05/2015 14:30

"RD "Why the hell do we want to go backwards?". Well, they went backwards by partnering with Honda again, so why not the colour? Orange fluo would set them apart from the crowd!"

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14. Posted by Hondawho?, 06/05/2015 13:30

"If you look at the front of the car it appears to be an optical illusion (due to the speedo or mankini marks on the front above the drivers feet) as it seems it has a platypus nose and the nose is much lower and in a separate section form the top/front of the car in front of the windscreen.

Its not black but more like pigeon grey.

Does it look classy, sort of, dull yes. It does emphasise the partners names if that was the reason then its succeeded.

As for RD's comments:

" fluorescent red is our colour". Well paint it ALL florescent red then.. Its been done before of course, the first car being the STP Paxton Turbine Indy car which if I remember looked rather great.

As for "Yes we could change colour," he concluded, "yes we could do something more daring, we could all these things, but give me a reason why? And if it's just to be aesthetically more pleasing, that's not enough reason to me."

"YES WE COULD BE MORE DARING", I thought that is what racing was all about, to be more daring than the rest?

"

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15. Posted by Ro, 06/05/2015 13:19

"MxClaren-Honda ???? Should have been white with a red stripe....."

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First glimpse of the revised McLaren livery

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