The change in naming pattern is a nice touch from a team that has always been very engaged with its history. While recent years haven’t offered anything like the kind of heyday that has left the corridor next to the MTC’s canteen filled with trophies - designed on purpose for the employees to walk past every day - the team has been firmly on the path to recovery.
Or so it seemed. McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown admitted back in 2021 that the team’s trajectory from ninth to sixth to fourth to third in the constructors’ championship didn’t meant the team would then go second-first. Instead, it slipped to fourth in 2021 - perhaps to be expected given Ferrari’s recovery to establish the ‘big three’ - and then to fifth last year, losing its ‘best of the rest’ crown to Alpine.
