The McLaren designer reveals his improbable secret weapon on the racetrack

It’s no secret that racing cars are as many billboards as there are hell-fast machines. After all, it’s still a business, and McLaren Racing is no exception. The balance between the two worlds lies with Simon Dibley, and the McLaren design specialist always thinks about it.

“You have to design to stand still and go 200 mph,” Dibley tells Inverse.

Race cars may drive around the track with courage, sweat, and technical skill, but everything is powered by sponsorship money – and most of the money comes from hitting company logos everywhere. But with dignity. The world of racing is fast paced and requires speed in the entire design ethos.

McLaren Racing

McLaren Papaya Orange

Dibley’s job is to make sure everything from McLaren’s business cards to the car paintwork – the paint scheme and design scheme, everything from the sponsor logos to the color of the car – matches the snuff.

However, McLaren is lucky in one way: it has papaya. That’s the name for the iconic and shockingly bright orange that is the color of the McLaren Racing team, and it has great historical significance (like so much in racing) for the UK-based outfit.

Papaya was first used in McLaren’s factory cars in 1968, and the team brought it back to Formula 1 in 2018 for the color’s 50th anniversary. When McLaren Racing returned to America for the 2020 IndyCar season after 40 years, Papaya came with them too.

McLaren Racing

But there is much more to a racing car livery than just a single color. Those sponsorship logos need a place of residence, and there is a long list of requirements: they need to be recognizable when the car is stationary, when it is traveling at 200 mph, when it is turning left, when it is turning right, when it is stopped at the pits and, if all goes well, when it is in the winning streak.

“We’re pretty happy with papaya,” explains Dibley. “That really stands out on the starting grid. We’re going to use that as the block color, as a base for adding the branding. You want this to stand out as much as possible while keeping the logos in place. We’re going to design the paint job to provide a specific space for branding. “

In F1, the car can change race after race. Another side pod changes the way a brand logo or graphic is placed.

Design a moving billboard

Having to look good in so many scenarios also means simplification. “We keep most of the logos mono. Black and white, ”says Dibley. “Some brands have different contracts, like Chevrolet on the IndyCar side, that always have to be in color. But we try to play mono most of the time to make the papaya stand out equally. “

McLaren’s IndyCar livery is papaya-blue for the Vuse-sponsored car and papaya-and-black for the Arrow-sponsored car. In Formula 1, the rules are different and the cars have to be identical.

McLaren Racing

Painting begins in Cinema 4D, a 3D rendering and design program with multiple renderings with different color schemes. Then it’s a jump to Adobe Illustrator as it’s faster to iterate and revise designs in 2D than a rendered car, but eventually it returns to the 3D model.

“You can rotate it and see how it would look at different angles. If you have enough bold colors, it will probably look good at 200 mph on one track, ”says Dibley. Design for television is of the utmost importance, especially in these days when fan traffic has dropped sharply thanks to COVID.

“A lot of cameras pan when the car goes around the corner, so they slow down a little,” he says. “It’s more about the basic colors. The design on the back makes the heavy lifting of sticking out on the track. With our blue and our papaya, the cars will definitely stand out. “

As with any sport, the mood of the fans also plays a big role. “When we got back to papaya, you could see a pretty positive change from our fans,” says Dibley. With McLaren racing in both IndyCar and Formula 1, having papaya as the uniform color for all of the company’s racing efforts is critical to brand identity.

McLaren Racing

Concerns about racing are also surfacing. Different parts of the car are aerodynamically important and it is not always possible to put vinyl decals everywhere the designers want them to be. But it gets even more difficult when parts of the car change, like the air intake side pods in Formula 1.

“In F1, the car can change race after race. Another side pod is changing the way a brand logo or graphic is placed, ”says Dibley. When the shape changes, either by changing the size or the curvature, “they can’t get as big as before, so we always have to take these things into account.”

The design team works closely with the racing side to make sure everything looks good and the car’s aerodynamics are not compromised or given away. When the design team creates digital renderings at the start of the season to share with sponsors and the press, sensitive aerodynamic elements on the front and rear wings – a major competitive secret in racing – are obscured or completely hidden.

McLaren Racing

How paintwork can do the car

Everyone has an opinion about a paint job. Perhaps nothing is more important to a racing team than the drivers themselves. The colors adorn the clothing, the garage and the fans.

Even countries have their own racing colors. British Racing Green is an icon. The Germans have silver and the current Mercedes-Benz F1 team is still nicknamed the Silver Arrows, while the Italians (or more precisely Ferrari) have Rosso Corsa. Japan uses white. While the car may be wrapped in a corporate veneer, ultimately the emotion and art behind the branding is real.

But advertising is the name of the game. That’s why Vuse, a vaping brand, is the main sponsor for one of McLaren’s IndyCars. It’s quite amusing to see that the car has all of the “This product contains nicotine” warnings on the car, and it’s a far cry from the outrageous red and white Marlboro branding that McLaren’s F1 cars used in the 1980s adorned.

No part of the car is left without a trademark. McLaren Racing

But no sponsorship deal would be complete without a marketing stunt. This one is pretty neat though: Vuse and McLaren are running a design contest where a fan-submitted paint job adorns the # 7 car for the IndyCar race on August 8, 2021 in Nashville, Tennessee. Dibley is one of the judges.

“I think it will be very interesting to see where they get their inspiration from,” he says. “Whether you’re taking a Passion Route or a classic paint job, it’s a great opportunity for someone to see their work on the route. It’s going to be very cool. “The deadline for entries is May 31, 2021.

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