The reigning Formula 1 constructors' champions, McLaren, have become the first team to launch their 2025 car ahead of the new season.
The MCL39 made its track debut at Silverstone in an interim "camo" livery, with the season-long race livery set to be unveiled at F1's season main launch event in London on Feb. 18.
McLaren made use of a promotional filming day to put the first miles on the new car before official testing takes place in Bahrain from Feb. 26 to Feb. 28. The first race of the season takes place in Australia on March 16.
The one-off livery, described by McLaren as a "striking geometric camo design in shades of papaya and black," was necessary to allow the team to debut its car in front of media before F1's official launch event next week.
All 10 teams have agreed to keep their actual liveries under wraps until the event in London, but that does not prevent new cars making their track debuts either in a different livery (or in private) ahead of time.
In the wild ⚡️#McLaren #F1 pic.twitter.com/LEXMrKWiaK
— McLaren (@McLarenF1) February 13, 2025
Stella said the team had taken a "relatively challenging approach" to development over the winter to ensure the performance of the MCL39 continued to ramp up from last year's MCL38.
The main focus has been on finding new ways to increase downforce and aerodynamic efficiency -- the key performance factors in modern F1 -- which has resulted in some significant changes across the car.
"Downforce and aero efficiency is by far the most important target that you have -- which is what we tried to achieves with this new car, which is innovative, It is a car which we tried to raise the bar in many areas, including the fundamental layout," Stella said.
"Pretty much every fundamental component of the layout has been subject to some innovation in order to gain -- sometimes not just by marginal gains -- some technical opportunities for development.
"This is to serve the purposes of aerodynamic requirements, or mechanical grip, but pretty much from the front wing to the gearbox everything has been subject to optimisation, sometimes incrementally, sometimes quite substantial."
McLaren won last year's constructors' title in a close battle with Ferrari, while Lando Norris finished second in the drivers' championship behind Red Bull's Max Verstappen.
After completing a morning of wet and cold running in the new car, Norris said the initial impression was good.
"It felt normal, I'd say, so that's been the first good step, because it has been quite innovative with some of the designs and some things that they've tried to attack with the car this year," Norris said.
"The guys have done a very good job to try and explore more areas and push boundaries. So you're always a little bit nervous that things are not going to be perfect when you try them, and how well they're going to match the track and wind tunnel and all these things put together.
"But I think everything's working as it should, and everything feels normal. Just with the conditions, things change quite quickly."
Stella confirmed the car would receive a series of upgrades throughout the early rounds of the season.
"The car we see today [on track] for this promotional event is pretty substantially the one we will see during the Bahrain test," he said. "We have tried to go as fast as possible in terms of developing the car, which means there will be some updates during the early races of the season.
"We are very aware that last season, even if had a successful season, the margin we had from a performance point of view was small, meaning we needed to be aggressive with the car to try and cash in as much performance as possible."
The team made significant progress after an upgrade at last year's Miami Grand Prix and went on to take six victories -- four with Norris and two with Oscar Piastri.
McLaren CEO Zak Brown believes the competition among teams will be even tighter this year after his team won its first constructors' crown in 26 years in 2024.
"We must be realistic that every team will have made progress over the winter. Last year highlighted just how much the grid has closed up, which is a brilliant thing for the sport.
"We believe we have made further steps forward since the championship-winning MCL38 but we won't know where we sit in the standings until we get into qualifying in Australia.
"We're a team that never stops racing and we'll be giving it our all to bring both championships back to Woking."
Williams is set to launch its car on Feb. 14 at Silverstone, while Haas will complete a private test of its new car on Feb 16. at the same circuit.