Showcasing the new MCL39 in a surprise launch at Silverstone on Thursday, Lando Norris says McLaren made more changes to the car than “you might think when you look at” it.

The reigning Constructors’ Championship became the first F1 team to unveil their F1 2025 car, putting a papaya camo-liveried MCL39 through its paces in a 200km shakedown at the Silverstone circuit on Thursday.

McLaren MCL39: ‘Lighter, stronger, faster, more powerful’

Norris, who finished a career-best runner-up in the 2024 Drivers’ Championship, shared the driving duties with his team-mate Oscar Piastri.

The new car featured notable changes to its predecessor, as explained by PlanetF1.com’s tech guru Matthew Somerfield, with significant alterations to the layout of the front suspension, a reprofiled nose, and changes to the airbox and sidepods.

But according to Norris, many of the changes are hidden from view.

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“They’ve changed more than you might think when you look at the car, which is a cool thing,” the Briton told Sky Sports News. “I mean, you try and improve in every area, right?

“You try and make it lighter, stronger, faster, more powerful, whatever it is. I think every single piece on the car has been worked on and improved.

“Sometimes it all adds up to tiny things, but sometimes you talk about small margins at the same time. It felt good. I mean, it’s nice to be back in the car.

“It’s exciting. First year for all of us as a team that we’re coming in as champions and with some targets on our back. It feels good, but the guys are doing an amazing job. So, yeah, good to be back.”

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella revealed McLaren mainly focused on two areas in improving the MCL39 compared to its predecessor; aerodynamic efficiency and interaction with the tyres.

Although he says McLaren went into the design of the 2026 car aware that they already had a competitive car in the MCL38, when all was said and done there was clear “innovation” with the new car.

“In terms of improving the car, in addition to downforce and aerodynamic efficiency, in reality that’s by far the most important target that you have, which is what we tried to achieve with this new car, which is innovative,” said Stella.

“It’s a car in which we tried to raise the bar in many areas, including the fundamental layout, something that definitely we evaluated carefully, because the MCL38 was already a competitive car.

“We needed to be conscious, considerate as to how much we wanted to innovate, but ultimately actually we went for a relatively challenging approach in terms of how much innovation is in this car.

“This is predominantly to gain aerodynamic efficiency so to allow our colleagues in aerodynamics to have volumes to use for their geometries.

“At the same time, we still wanted to make some improvements in terms of interaction with the tyres and what you can do to improve especially what is your long-run pace.

“I think they fundamentally are the two areas. Obviously, there’s some tuning on the suspension as well, in terms of the mechanical grip, but nowadays the suspensions pretty much tend to serve aerodynamics.”

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