McLaren MCL38

The MCL38 was the first McLaren car to win a Grand Prix since the MCL35M in 2021, the first to win multiple Grands Prix in a single season since the MP4-27 in 2012, and the first to lead the Constructors' Championship since the MP4-29 in 2014. It was also the first championship-winning Formula One car to use customer engines since the Brawn BGP 001 in 2009.

The MCL38's predecessor, the MCL60, was initially designed by then-technical director James Key. Early in the 2023 season the initial MCL60 specification proved highly uncompetitive, and Key left the team. Existing employees Peter Prodromou and Neil Houldey were promoted to lead the design department. David Sanchez was hired from Scuderia Ferrari as part of the technical restructure but was placed on gardening leave until the beginning of 2024; he left three months into his contract in April 2024. The new technical team implemented several rounds of mid-season upgrades for the MCL60 that turned the team's performance around, and journalist Lawrence Barretto observed these radical changes opened up ample development opportunities for the MCL38.

McLaren had previously used a wind tunnel in Cologne owned by Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe, requiring parts to be shipped from the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking, England, to Germany for testing. The team had invested in its own wind tunnel, delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, which was ready for operations in August 2023. McLaren began MCL38 development in July 2023 and reported good correlation as well as cost and time savings from the new facility.

Team principal Andrea Stella identified three main goals: improving aerodynamic efficiency, mechanical grip, and tyre performance. Driveability — described by Norris as a long-standing weakness across all McLarens he had driven — was a specific concern. Some driveability improvements were present on the launch specification; others were delivered during the season. Improving tyre degradation relative to Red Bull Racing, which had dominated 2023, required both mechanical and aerodynamic changes.

The launch specification featured new front brake duct inlets, sidepod inlets, floor edge, and revised front and rear suspension. The MCL38's livery was dominated by papaya orange and exposed carbon fibre (referred to by the team as anthracite), similar to the MCL36 and MCL60. Two changes drew on one-off MCL60 liveries: increased exposed carbon fibre from the "Stealth Mode" variant and chrome elements from the British Grand Prix variant. The livery contained no blue, which had featured on every full-season McLaren since the MCL33 in 2018. Special liveries were run at the Japanese Grand Prix (a design by MILTZ, in collaboration with sponsor Vuse), the Monaco Grand Prix (Brazilian flag colours marking the 30th anniversary of Ayrton Senna's death), the Singapore Grand Prix (an "MP4 era"-inspired "Legend Reborn" livery replacing anthracite with white to evoke McLaren's 1981–86 colours), and the United States Grand Prix (a returning Google Chrome chrome livery last used at the 2023 British Grand Prix).

The MCL38 first ran at a filming day at Silverstone Circuit in February 2024, driven by both Norris and Piastri, ahead of the official pre-season test at Bahrain International Circuit. Stella said the car's most significant gain over the MCL60 was increased rear grip.

In the opening rounds, the MCL38 showed strong performance in medium- and high-speed corners but lacked top speed and underperformed in slow-speed corners — including at Shanghai International Circuit for the Chinese Grand Prix, where McLaren anticipated difficulty. After a wet sprint qualifying session in which Norris took pole, Norris finished second in the Chinese Grand Prix race.

At the Miami Grand Prix, McLaren introduced what Zak Brown described as "almost a B-spec car": a package including a new front wing, new front and rear suspension geometry, revised brake ducts and winglets, a new floor, revised sidepod inlet, and a new engine cover. Norris, who carried all upgrades, won the race — his first Grand Prix victory — after pit-stop sequencing moved him into the lead under a safety car. Performance in slow-speed corners improved to such a degree that the team had to investigate why the package had exceeded expectations. Piastri received the remaining upgrades at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. By the British Grand Prix Norris said McLaren had "out-developed by a mile all of our competition."

At the Hungarian Grand Prix McLaren secured their first front-row lock-out since 2012. Piastri made a better start and moved into first, lost the position during the second round of pit stops, and Norris was instructed to return it. Norris instead built a gap of six seconds before eventually slowing to allow Piastri to take his first Grand Prix win. Their first-and-second finish was McLaren's first 1–2 since 2021.

A Dutch Grand Prix upgrade package included new brake scoop, front and rear suspension, floor and edge wing, and beam and rear wings. Norris won at Zandvoort. A new sidepod design complemented these changes at Monza for the Italian Grand Prix, where Norris noted the MCL38 was approximately 20 km/h quicker in a straight line than the MCL60 had been.

Piastri won the Azerbaijan Grand Prix after Norris's qualifying lap was interrupted by yellow flags, leaving him seventeenth on the grid. The result moved McLaren into first place in the World Constructors' Championship for the first time since the 2014 Australian Grand Prix.

Further upgrades — new front wing, front and rear suspension, front and rear brake ducts, and beam wing — were introduced for the United States Grand Prix. A substitute floor was trialled in Mexico City free practice by Norris and Pato O'Ward, who drove in place of Norris in the first practice session for the Arrow McLaren IndyCar team. At the São Paulo Grand Prix, wet and chaotic conditions led to Norris finishing sixth after leading from pole, and Max Verstappen's win from seventeenth effectively ended Norris's World Drivers' Championship challenge.

Norris won the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix from pole to clinch McLaren's first Constructors' Championship since 1998, narrowly ahead of Ferrari. Norris finished the season second in the World Drivers' Championship; Piastri finished fourth.

McLaren scored points on 46 of 48 possible occasions across the season. Commentators broadly agreed that a range of strategic errors by the team and mistakes by both drivers had cost additional results; after the British Grand Prix, several analysts concluded McLaren could have won five more races had these errors not occurred.

During the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, observers noted that the MCL38's rear wing flexed in a way that mimicked the drag reduction system (DRS) even outside DRS zones, with the bottom corners of the upper panel lifting to allow airflow through. The behaviour — nicknamed "mini-DRS" — had been introduced on a wing used from the Belgian Grand Prix onward. The FIA confirmed the design was legal under existing regulations but asked McLaren to modify it, to which the team agreed. Engineering director Houldey later called the controversy "a point of pride" and proof of technical innovation.

The MCL38 early in the season was considered the overall third-fastest car, with weaknesses in slow-speed corners and drag reduction. The Miami upgrade package addressed the slow-corner deficit more comprehensively than McLaren had modelled; Stella attributed part of the gain to an "intangible benefit" of greater driver confidence that factory simulations could not capture. The MCL38 had a wide operating window and McLaren's ability to tailor the car to specific circuits proved a significant advantage; the team developed eight rear wings and fourteen beam wings across the season, more than any rival, aided by the largest aerodynamic testing allocation among the top four teams (having finished fourth in the 2023 World Constructors' Championship).

Compared with Ferrari's SF-24, the MCL38 excelled over a qualifying lap but typically trailed on race pace due to the SF-24's superior tyre management. Every McLaren upgrade since the 2023 Austrian Grand Prix package was reported to have worked immediately and as expected. Norris and Piastri had clean seasons with no major incidents; most rivals were forced to reduce upgrade pace due to the cost of repairing accident damage. Former Formula One strategist Bernadette Collins concluded in a retrospective analysis that Norris could have won the World Drivers' Championship with a strategically perfect season.

Haas adopted the MCL38's distinctive sidepod inlet design on their VF-24. The MCL38's flexible front wing design — later adopted by Mercedes — resolved a balance issue common on Formula One cars of the era and rendered Red Bull's front-wing solution obsolete. Red Bull could not afford to adopt the McLaren solution within the budget cap, and its pursuit of increased downforce as an alternative destabilised its car and ultimately eliminated it from Constructors' Championship contention. The MCL38 won International Competition Car of the Year at the 2025 Autosport Awards.

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