Video: McLaren stages Back to the Future stunt for 2015 F1 car launch
Don't give up the day job, Jenson
IF YOU were to rank the Formula One teams for their sense of humour, McLaren would probably sit at the bottom of the list. That’s despite the amusing “Tooned” cartoons produced in recent years … and the team’s 2014 results.
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The latest effort should make you smile, though. The team has rolled out an homage to the Back to the Future film series on the eve of the launch of its new 2015 racing car, the MP4-30, starring its drivers Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso.
In the film Button arrives at the McLaren technology centre on a skateboard, in the style of Marty McFly, while the team’s new signing (or re-signing, perhaps) Fernando Alonso takes the role of Doc Smith, revealing a McLaren 650S time machine in a cloud of smoke and white light from the back of a transporter truck.
Button and Alonso then climb aboard and set the time matrix for the first race of the season in Australia. Clearly they feel that where they’re going they don’t need pre-season testing.
“Roads? We don’t need roads where we’re going,” says Button (fluffing the line, incidentally), “but we do need a racetrack!”
The acting is wooden and the lines are hammy, but there are laughs in there and McLaren has clearly produced this film with tongue firmly in cheek.
More importantly, the unveiling of the MP4-30, the first McLaren-Honda F1 car since 1992, takes place today. Follow the team’s Twitter feed for updates.
