The McLaren MCL33 is a Formula One racing car designed and constructed by McLaren to compete in the 2018 FIA Formula One World Championship. The car was driven by two-time World Drivers' Champion Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne, with additional testing and development work carried out by reigning European Formula 3 champion Lando Norris and McLaren's regular test driver Oliver Turvey. The MCL33 is the first car built by McLaren to use a customer Renault engine after the team terminated its engine supply deal with Honda after three years and also first McLaren car to utilize a French-licensed engine manufacturer since the Peugeot-powered McLaren MP4/9 in 1994. It made its competitive debut at the 2018 Australian Grand Prix. The car was launched with an orange and blue livery designed as a tribute to some of the team's earliest cars. Currently Fernando Alonso’s MCL33 is on display at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, CA, USA.
After criticising their engine supplier in the previous seasons, a switch to customer Renault engines in 2018 exposed issues with the McLaren chassis. The car could manage just two top 10 qualifying times throughout the season, both by Fernando Alonso, and the team's drivers were eliminated 21 times in the first qualifying session. McLaren had the second worst average qualifying ranking of any team in 2018, only ahead of Williams.Reliability however was improved from the previous year, and the team greatly benefitted from their rivals' problems to score points from the early races.The team finished sixth in the constructors' championship after Force India's points from the first 12 races were excluded. Alonso retired from Formula One at the end of the season, making the MCL33 the last car to date he raced in his Formula One career (until his eventual return to the F1 grid with Alpine in 2021), while Vandoorne couldn't match his own points tally from 2017 and left the sport.decessor, the SF70H, that had 5 wins and 20 podiums at the end of the 2017 season.
Best Lap Times
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