The McLaren MP4-17 was the car with which the

McLaren McLaren Racing Limited is a British motor racing team based at the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking, Surrey, England. McLaren is best known as a Formula One constructor, the second oldest active team, and the second most successful Formul ...

team competed in the and

Formula One Formula One (also known as Formula 1 or F1) is the highest class of international racing for open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The World Drivers' Championship, ...

World Championships. The chassis was designed by

Adrian Newey Adrian Martin Newey, (born 26 December 1958) is a British Formula One engineer. He is currently the chief technical officer of the Red Bull Racing F1 team. Newey has worked in both Formula One and American Championship car racing, IndyCar raci ...

Mike Coughlan Michael Coughlan (born 17 February 1959) is a British motor racing engineer and designer. He was Chief Designer for the McLaren Formula One team from to , where he was suspended for his part in the spygate scandal between McLaren and Ferrari, ...

Neil Oatley Neil Oatley (born 12 June 1954) is a design and development director in Formula One teams. Born in Britain, Oatley graduated from Loughborough University in 1976 with an automotive engineering degree. He worked briefly outside motor racing before ...

and

Peter Prodromou Peter Prodromou (born 14 January 1969) is a British/Greek-Cypriot aerodynamicist and engineer. Currently, he is working as Chief Engineer (Aerodynamics) for the McLaren Formula One team. Biography Prodromou originally joined McLaren's design of ...

with

Mario Illien Mario Illien (born 2 August 1949) is a Swiss engineer specialising in motorsport engine design and comes from Chur in the Canton of Graubünden, Switzerland. Despite living in a country in which motor racing was banned in 1955 (when Illien was si ...

designing the bespoke

Ilmor Ilmor is a British independent high-performance motor racing engineering company. It was founded by Mario Illien and Paul Morgan in November 1983. With manufacturing based in Brixworth, Northamptonshire, and maintenance offices in Plymouth, Mic ...

engine. The car was driven by Briton

David Coulthard David Marshall Coulthard (; born 27 March 1971) is a British former racing driver from Scotland, later turned presenter, commentator and journalist. Nicknamed 'DC', he competed in 15 seasons of Formula One between and , taking 13 Grand Prix vi ...

and Finn

Kimi Räikkönen Kimi-Matias Räikkönen (; born 17 October 1979), nicknamed "The Iceman", is a Finnish racing driver who competed in Formula One between 2001 and 2021 for Sauber, McLaren, Ferrari, Lotus, and Alfa Romeo. Räikkönen won the 2007 Formula One Wo ...

in both seasons.

2002

The team did not perform as well as expected in 2002, in a season dominated by Ferrari, and due to the unreliability of the car; they eventually finished third in the Constructors' Championship with 65 points and one victory (in

Monaco Monaco (; ), officially the Principality of Monaco (french: Principauté de Monaco; Ligurian: ; oc, Principat de Mónegue), is a sovereign city-state and microstate on the French Riviera a few kilometres west of the Italian region of Lig ...

2003

Using a development version of the car, the MP4-17D, the 2003 season started very promisingly with wins at the first two grands prix of the year, one each for Coulthard and Räikkönen. However, rival teams soon caught up as McLaren was sidetracked by the development of the

McLaren MP4-18 The McLaren MP4-18 (sometimes stylised as MP4/18) is a Formula One car which was built with the intention to compete in the 2003 Formula One season. The car, designed by Adrian Newey, Mike Coughlan, and Neil Oatley, was a radical new design tha ...

, a radical new design, which due to reliability problems, never raced in anger. As a result, the team gradually fell slightly further back as the season progressed, allowing rivals, developing their cars more efficiently, to catch up. However, despite this setback, Räikkönen consistently finished in the points and challenged

Michael Schumacher Michael Schumacher (; ; born 3 January 1969) is a German former racing driver who competed in Formula One for Jordan, Benetton, Ferrari, and Mercedes. Schumacher has a joint-record seven World Drivers' Championship titles (tied with Lewis ...

for the championship all the way up to the last race, eventually losing the title by only 2 points. The team again finished third in the Constructors' Championship, and having 142 points, just two points behind

Williams F1 Williams Grand Prix Engineering Limited, currently racing in Formula One as Williams Racing, is a British Formula One motor racing team and constructor. It was founded by former team owner Frank Williams and automotive engineer Patrick Head ...

. McLaren used 'West' logos, in both seasons except at the French and British Grands Prix.

Complete Formula One results

(

key Key or The Key may refer to: Common meanings * Key (cryptography), a piece of information that controls the operation of a cryptography algorithm * Key (lock), device used to control access to places or facilities restricted by a lock * Key (map ...

) (results in bold indicate pole position, results in ''italics'' indicate fastest lap)

References

McLaren MP4 17 2002 Formula One season cars 2003 Formula One season cars {{f1-stub