McLaren Racing has revealed a special one-off livery for the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, swapping its signature papaya for a primarily white design inspired by the McLaren M2B, the car that launched the team’s Formula 1 journey at the 1966 Monaco Grand Prix. The livery, created in partnership with Google Gemini under the campaign tagline “Spark What’s Next,” will run on the MCL40 this weekend.
The M2B holds deep significance for the team at Silverstone specifically. In 1966, founder Bruce McLaren drove the car to the team’s first-ever Formula 1 championship point at the British Grand Prix, a milestone that set the foundation for six decades of competition at the highest level of motorsport.
“Our Silverstone livery is a celebration of where we began and everything we have built since,” McLaren Racing said in its official announcement. “The McLaren M2B represents the start of a journey defined by relentless innovation and a belief in possibility, and this design brings that spirit to life.”
The heritage livery builds on a season of celebrations for the Woking-based team. Earlier this year at the Monaco Grand Prix, McLaren marked its 1,000th Grand Prix with a special orange-and-black colour scheme, while two-time World Champion Mika Häkkinen drove the original M2B around the Circuit de Monaco in tribute to the team’s origins.
McLaren emphasized the scale of evolution between the M2B and the current MCL40, noting that a modern Formula 1 car can undergo approximately 18,000 design changes over the course of a single season. The partnership with Google Gemini plays directly into that pursuit of continuous improvement. The team uses Gemini Enterprise to build tools that allow trackside engineers to rapidly search and compare sporting regulations during races, and is developing a natural language interface that pulls data from multiple systems simultaneously to accelerate analysis of critical metrics like lap times.
“From sparking creative ideas with the Gemini app to securely turning complex datasets into real-time trackside intelligence with Gemini Enterprise, McLaren is showing what it means to harness the power of AI,” Google said in a statement accompanying the reveal.
Fans will be able to see the livery up close at a joint McLaren Racing and Gemini activation at the Truman Brewery in East London. The “Gemini Paddock,” a multi-day fan experience, is free to the public and opens Thursday, running for the duration of the British Grand Prix weekend.