McLaren's MCL60 and Aston Martin's AMR23 set to star as launch season continues

It’s McLaren and Aston Martin’s turn in the spotlight to kick off the week, with both British teams revealing their new-look 2023 cars.

Following on from AlphaTauri’s 2023 reveal in New York on Saturday, the car launches come thick and fast this week as Monday marks the first ‘two launches in one day’ of the year.

McLaren and Aston Martin are both set to peel the covers from their 2023 machines, with big question marks and tremendous excitement about how these two cars will stack up – particularly against each other, as potential leaders in the upper midfield.

It’s a season of some change for McLaren, with Oscar Piastri arriving at the team in place of the ousted Daniel Ricciardo to race alongside the now-seasoned veteran Lando Norris. Gone, too, is team boss Andreas Seidl – the German has left to join Sauber while, in his place, Andrea Stella has stepped up from his trackside engineering role to become the team boss.

McLaren have also signed a major new sponsor for this season, landing former Renault title sponsor DP World as a logistics partner for 2023.

The team have also broken with tradition in regard to their car nomenclature as well, with McLaren opting to break away from the expected ‘MCL37’ to carry on the naming structure used by the team since the early 1980s. Instead, to mark 60 years since the foundation of Bruce McLaren’s eponymous team, the car will be called the MCL60.

How might the McLaren MCL60 look?

The MCL60 will be revealed to the world at 5pm UK time (6pm CET), with the team holding an online launch that will be streamed across their social media channels.

With McLaren latching back onto their papaya-coloured roots in recent years, there’s little reason to believe that the colour scheme for this year will be significantly different – particularly given the colour branding across Formula E and IndyCar. However, with the teams aiming for as much weight-saving as possible, it is possible that the MCL60 livery could feature more black to go with the papaya and blue.

PlanetF1.com recommends

Both Norris and Piastri will be on hand for the big reveal, while Stella will make his first public appearance as team boss, joined by CEO Zak Brown.

Viewers of the online launch will also be able to join guest hosts Vikkstar123 and Ariana Bravo for a journey through the team’s 60-year history.

McLaren’s launch will last around 20 minutes, according to the team, meaning there’s just enough time to grab some tea before settling down for Aston Martin’s launch event at 7pm.

Aston Martin’s AMR23 to be shown to the world

Lawrence Stroll’s team are going through a period of rejuvenation off-track, with a new state-of-the-art factory being built to allow the team to move out of the factory set up by Eddie Jordan for his team in the early 1990s.

While this won’t have an effect on 2023 just yet, the change of drivers might: Sebastian Vettel has retired from Formula 1 and, in his place, two-time World Champion Fernando Alonso has cut his ties with Alpine to jump ship to race in green in 2023.

Alonso and Lance Stroll make for an interesting partnership, with the Spaniard’s notorious temperament seemingly at odds with the political game he will no doubt be forced to play racing alongside the son of the team’s owner.

Both drivers will be on hand to reveal the AMR23 and have promised that “this is no showcar”. The launch begins at 7pm UK time (8pm CET) and will be held in the newly-built factory, streamed live on the Aston Martin YouTube channel, the team’s website, TikTok, and Facebook.

The reveal will be hosted by Rachel Brookes, and broadcast simultaneously on Sky Sports F1.

As well as Alonso and Stroll, Felipe Drugovich, Stoffel Vandoorne, Jessica Hawkins, Pedro de la Rosa, Lawrence Stroll, and team boss Mike Krack will be in attendance alongside Dan Fallows and Eric Blandin.

With no major sponsorship changes, the car’s livery is likely to be quite similar to 2022’s. While tweaks were made to the shade of green used after 2021 in order to brighten the colour scheme for TV pictures, the refined livery used last season appeared to tick all the boxes. If changes are made, expect them to be small ones!