Ron Dennis has announced that he would only change the current McLaren livery if there was a commercial reason to do so - and then went on to confirm that it will change, but he would not say when.
McLaren is known to still be in discussions with Santander about a continuation of its sponsorship deal, and that could be one of the triggers for a change from the color scheme that has not proved popular with the public.
“We've got the same thing inside [the company],” he said. “You've got people who say 'Why don't we make it orange?' and I say, 'Why?'
“'That was the old color of McLaren.' 'Well yeah you just said it, why the hell do we want to go backwards?' Then what do you do? Do you create an aesthetically pleasing design? For what purpose do you produce an aesthetically pleasing design?
“This is the livery of McLaren, it's always been a combination of these colors, and it will only change for commercial reasons, it wont change just to make a few people in the company happier because they want it orange, or they want it yellow. We tried to put a bit more of our real color, which is dayglow.
“Fluorescent red is our color. We've got more heritage in fluorescent red than any other color. But again what I prefer to do is put a stylish design and as we evolve... it will be far more recognized if we suddenly come out with a light green car for the following reason, you'll all go, yeah they've got a big amount of money coming in. Why would you react to Twitter?”
Asked about the widespread association of the current livery with Mercedes he said: “The car's got a minimal amount of mirroring on it, I wouldn't even call it silver. You're voicing an opinion which lots of people voice, in the company, on Twitter, everything. But that's a problem without a solution. Yes we could change color, yes we could do something more daring, we could all these things, but give me a reason why? And if it's just to aesthetically more pleasing, that's not enough reason to me.”
However, pressed on the Mercedes connection, he finally admitted: “It will change, but I'm not going to say when...”
When asked, Honda F1 boss Yasuhisa Arai added: “I can't say what color I like! It depends on the sponsors, the fans, our future direction. We have to think about many things.”
