McLaren have responded to a reported leak of the team's 2019 Formula 1 livery, denying that an image shared widely online was accidentally posted from within the Woking squad. An image suggesting McLaren will stick with a papaya livery, and give sponsors Coca-Cola a prominent placing, emerged on Friday, but it did not come from the team.
A new nose cone could also be seen in the supposedly leaked image, which first surfaced on Reddit.
Responding to a question about the apparent mishap on Twitter, McLaren insisted that it had not come from within.
Nice try, but this definitely didn't come from any of our channels!
— McLaren (@McLarenF1) January 17, 2019
The real source of the image may lie from another corner of the internet it seems.
However, board user charliesmithhd claimed to have come up with the rendering, which is claimed to have been posted on a McLaren fanpage and then deleted, leading to the speculation.
GPFans were among a clutch of sites to pick up the news, but it seems we will have to be patient until McLaren's official reveal date for a full look at the MCL34, despite our impatience!