McLaren reveals launch date for 2023 F1 contender

McLaren revealed through a cryptic post on social media on Friday that it will present its 2023 F1 season and unveil its new car on February 13.

The Woking-based outfit will pull the covers off its 2023 contender on the same day as Aston Martin presents its new car and a day before Ferrari.

Like last year, McLaren's F1 presentation is likely to take place at the team's Technology Center, perhaps alongside its IndyCar and Extreme E programmes.

While all eyes will be on the team's new MCL37 charger on February 13, the two main changes noted at McLaren this year compared to 2022 will be the promotion of Andrea Stella as team principal following Andreas Seidl's move to Sauber and the F1 debut of Oscar Piastri who takes over from Daniel Ricciardo alongside Lando Norris.

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• Brown: Closing gap to top three is McLaren's 2023 aim

Last year, McLaren held fourth in the Constructors' Championship in the first part of the season but team papaya was eventually beaten to the 'best of the rest' spot in the pecking order by Alpine.

This season, McLaren racing chief Zak Brown is looking for his outfit to reduce its gap to the front of the field.

"We kind of have two data points that we pay most attention to," Brown told Aussie website Speedcafé last month.

"One is, how close are we to the team that’s winning. If that team is not Mercedes, our other data point – given what a great team Mercedes is, and we share the same engine – is how close are we to Mercedes."

McLaren will also fight to recoup its fourth-place in the Constructors' championship, although Brown believes his team will need to rely on its new infrastructure at Woking – and especially on its new wind-tunnel that it will phase in during the year – to make more significant gains.

"Of course, we’d like to get back up to at least fourth in the championship," he said.

"But I think we’re going to need a little bit more of our technology in place to really be able to break into the top three."

As for new recruit Oscar Piastri, Brown says Mclaren will make every effort to "integrate" the 21-year-old rookie within the tea as best as possible.

“I think Oscar, he’s a very focused, mature, fast individual from everything that we’ve seen so far," explained Brown.

"His track record is much like Lando’s in that he’s kind of won everything in his first year along the way, which is pretty rare, which means you have got to be pretty, pretty special.

"So we just need to integrate them into the team, like we did with Lando, and hope that he finds his feet.

"He will have plenty of support from us. We want to make sure there’s not too much pressure on him coming into a big team against a very difficult, fast team-mate."

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