The Good:

• It’s not the previous one
• The colour scheme is nice
• White sponsors on the “graphite” background look good
• The orange wing mirrors are gone

The Bad:
• Still no major sponsor
• Still somewhat dull
• Still a bit too much like the Force India

The Ugly:
• Extra swooshy line on the nose is baffling, and makes the car look like it has a stepped nose

In summary: we’ll call this a step in the right direction, but it’d be ten times better without that extra nose stripe, and they’d have ten times the goodwill from us if they’d just launched with it in the first place. And for GOD’S SAKE GET A SPONSOR, RON.

For this year, I’m bringing back the points system that I used in 2012 and 2013 (but dropped for last year), to give a reflection of how each livery scores in an assortment of different categories. Each category has up to five points available, making for a score out of 20, and here’s what they all mean:

Colours: Are the individual colours themselves good choices? And more importantly, how well do they go together?
Design: How the colours are actually applied to the car, and in particular whether they fit well with the lines of it.
Sponsors: Having a good portfolio of sponsors scores points, but so too does integrating them effectively with the livery rather than just slapping on multi-coloured stickers.
Originality: Does it offer anything new to the grid’s portfolio? Or if it’s based on an old design, does it at least freshen things up?
Bonus points: Additional marks can be given for anything I like about the livery that doesn’t fall in the above (but can’t take it above a maximum score of 20)

In practice, a car that scores 14 or above is well-regarded, 10-13 is decent, and anything in single figures is a disappointment. And to keep a sense of suspense, let’s run through them in ascending order of their score. Bet you can’t guess which one that means we do first…

McLaren Honda

Colours: 4/5
Honestly, in principle there’s nothing at all wrong with silver, black and red. They’re great colours for an F1 car. But…
Design: 1/5
They’ve been applied with no thought or care here, and look awful.
Sponsors: 1/5
And McLaren are still without a title sponsor, which is an unacceptable state of affairs.
Originality: 1/5
And they haven’t bothered to come up with a new livery despite pretending they were going to.

Total: 7/20

Manor Marussia F1 Team

Colours: 3/5
Red white and black are a good combo, but I don’t really like this more orangey shade. The darker red on the team uniforms looks much better.
Design: 2/5
Well, it exists. It’s simple and workmanlike, neither stylish nor ugly.
Sponsors: 0/5
Can’t give them points for sponsors when they don’t have any!
Originality: 2/5
It’s basically last year’s Marussia, but they have at least made a small tweak by removing the black panels from the side.
Bonus points: 2
One because nobody ever expected them to have a proper livery at this stage anyway (they’ve been more concerned with just getting on the grid). And one for looking more like the McLaren should have done than the McLaren does.

Total: 9/20

Infiniti Red Bull Racing

Colours: 2/5
Terrific shade of blue, which goes well with the red and yellow, but by gum the purple spoils it.
Design: 2/5
Making the lines more solid (as opposed to the spray-paint) has had a negative rather than positive effect.
Sponsors: 3/5
Funny that a team who are basically themselves a sponsor are also one of the few to get a separate title sponsor. Really like how the Red Bull text on the monocoque now looks.
Originality: 3/5
At least there’s been an attempt to mix it up this year, even if it’s not successful.

Total: 10/20

Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team

Colours: 4/5
It still feels like the discovery that the silver and turquoise go so well together was an accident: but it’s a happy accident. A point off the usual 5/5, though, for there being too much black now.
Design: 3/5
It looks better now it’s less spray-painty, but both the black and turquoise sections still feel a bit wishy-washy.
Sponsors: 3/5
Can’t fault how they’re integrated on the car, but it’d be nice to see more of them.
Originality: 2/5
While they’ve tended to make subtle changes since its introduction in 2010, it’s still basically a five-year-old design now – and pretty much identical to the latter part of last season.

Total: 12/20

Scuderia Toro Rosso

Colours: 3/5
Lovely combo of metallic blue, red and gold works better than Red Bull’s.
Design: 4/5
I say it every year, but I still think the bull should be got rid of. Otherwise, though, I like the gold/red flashes and the rear wing works well too. It’s a lot smarter than the earliest STRs.
Sponsors: 3/5
Still a little sparse, but it’s good that they’ve got a few of their own that are distinct from Red Bull, and none of them clash.
Originality: 2/5
Kudos for mixing it up a little bit each year, but not enough for the new car reveal to ever be exciting.

Total: 12/20

Scuderia Ferrari

Colours: 3/5
If they ever go back to proper rosso corsa, we’ll give them a 5/5. Until then, nope.
Design: 3/5
Nothing especially wrong with this, although nor is it particularly exciting. Lines flow better than last year, we just wish there was more black on the wings.
Sponsors: 3/5
They’ve got a pretty good array of sponsors, and Santander suits the car well – but that UPS logo is still a glaring problem.
Originality: 1/5
Nobody deserves credit for painting a Ferrari red and white. Not that it should ever be anything else, of course.
Bonus points: 2
To make up for the fact that, although it loses out on originality, Ferrari are the one team who are allowed to be that way.

Total: 13/20

Sauber F1 Team

Colours: 3/5
Nice to see yellow back on the grid in some form, but there’s already enough blue around and that shade is more plastic than metallic.
Design: 3/5
Simple and smart. No great shakes, but doesn’t do much wrong, and the new nose bit helps enormously.
Sponsors: 2/5
The ones they have are integrated nicely, but they don’t have very many, and could yet end up with even fewer.
Originality: 4/5
I’ve slated Sauber so often on this site for being dull and boring with their livery that I have to applaud them for surprising us with something COMPLETELY new. Even if it does look like a mid-90s Ligier.
Bonus points: 1
MASSIVE RACE NUMBERS!

Total: 13/20

Lotus F1 Team

Colours: 4/5
Well, you know what we’re going to say: this would be a 5 for the black and gold (and a cleaner shade of the latter than the metallic style of previous years), but a point dropped for chucking clashy red in there.
Design: 4/5
Much improved on previous years. Still doesn’t look much like a JPS car (only the 2011 one was ever close) but aside from the red bits it’s highly smart.
Sponsors: 4/5
Once again: would be a 5, for a good array of backers who all fit the colour scheme, if not for sodding PDVSA.
Originality: 2/5
One point above the standard “you just nicked the JPS livery” 1/5 for having the decency to actually come up with fresh lines (and change the colour tones a bit) this time around.

Total: 14/20

Sahara Force India F1 Team

Colours: 4/5
Silver and black, with orange trim? Yes please. The addition of subtle green maybe overcooks it, though.
Design: 3/5
Perfectly functional, maybe just a little lacking in excitement.
Sponsors: 4/5
Terrific work: they’ve actually got lots of sponsors (even if several are owned by the same two companies) and every single logo is coloured to fit in with the livery. That’s how it’s done.
Originality: 4/5
I wanted to give them top marks for the way they blew our socks off on launch day: but I have to drop a point for its similarity (if in inverse) to the McLaren.

Total: 15/20

Williams Martini Racing

Colours: 4/5
Definitely the right choice of base colour to go with those gorgeous Martini stripes.
Design: 3/5
The larger Martini stripe on the engine cover improves it, but still a bit sparse in some areas. Dark wings help to break things up, though.
Sponsors: 4/5
A nice proper old-fashioned title sponsor, and adding Rexona helps to boost the overall portfolio.
Originality: 2/5
Only a slight tweak from last year, and of course it’s piggy-backing on a classic design anyway.
Bonus points: 2
Because it’s still gorgeous even with the flaws mentioned above.

Total: 15/20

So there we have it: unsurprisingly, Williams hold on to top spot despite only minor changes from last year, but they’re joined by Force India, who get massive kudos for something genuinely new (for them, at least) and an incredibly smart application of sponsors. Even less of a shock is my thinly-veiled contempt for the McLaren, while Mercedes are disappointingly samey and Red Bull disappointingly ugly. Honourable mentions, too, for Sauber and Lotus, two teams who’ve copped flak from me in recent years but have done solid jobs for 2015.

So that’s my take: what do you reckon?

Of course, they can’t really be blamed for this: hiring a livery designer was probably pretty low down the list of budget priorities (although I bet many an F1 Colours reader would have done it for free!) and it’s not even as if they have any sponsors to try and incorporate. I mean, literally: they have no sponsors.

Yet they have at least made one change to the design, which is to remove the large black area from the side view; and that suggests that maybe they do have some kind of plan for the livery. As does the fact that they have brand new team wear, in a different shade of red, with a bit more emphasis on the black:

So perhaps, when they’ve had the chance to settle in, we’ll see something a bit different? And some actual logos on the car? Let’s hope so.

   

If the team were so keen to include this purple on behalf of Infiniti – and I’ve no problem with the colour in its own right, I loved the mid-90s Simteks and it would have been great if F1’s tobacco-sponsor heyday had ever included a Silk Cut car – then you wonder why they desperately needed to keep the blue, red and yellow. I know those are Red Bull’s corporate colours, but it’s not as if anyone’s in danger of not associating the team with that brand, now, is it? As it is, this car is just a cluttered, ugly mess – nothing about it works, with the possible exception of the “Red Bull” wording alongside the monocoque. And it yet doesn’t feel like it would take too much – just a smarter distribution of the chosen colours – to make it work.

Elsewhere in livery news, both Sauber and Force India revealed minor tweaks in testing to the liveries that they’d initially launched. Force India have added a small green stripe to the lower half of the car, which better strengthens the application of their original branding but also slightly throws off the smart look of the orange/silver/black combo:

And Sauber have made a couple of changes to fend off the accusation that their new blue-and-yellow job was a little dull to begin with – a new yellow stripe on the nose (which does well to break up the otherwise plain block), and massive race numbers on the side of the monocoque:

 

And finally, there has of course been confirmation by the FIA that they’re banning drivers from changing their helmet designs over the course of a season. We’re slightly conflicted by this: on the one hand, it was kind of annoying to see Vettel rock up with a different design for every single race. But on the other, as a rule it’s just absolutely bloody mental. It does nothing to help the sport to introduce it, and while it’s a shame that the classic days of immediately distinctive driver lids are (mostly) gone, an artificial rule like this isn’t going to change that (the designs themselves will still be as they currently are – often quite detailed and intricate compared with the block-colour jobs of old, and in some cases very heavily influenced by sponsors).

Indeed, the question is raised of just how strongly the FIA will enforce this: if a driver is at (say) Ferrari, but then moves to Red Bull mid-season, would they have to keep the Marlboro badges and not add Red Bull logos? And if not, then will we see drivers claim that in fact their designs are entirely sponsor-based, to give them the freedom to change them?

It should be a driver’s prerogative to wear whatever design he wants on his race helmet, and if Vettel’s decision is to change it every race, then (annoying as that is) he should be allowed. To completely take away the possibility of fun one-off single-race designs, as had become something of a trend in recent years, feels like an incredibly dog-in-the-manger move by the FIA; and it’s a case of inventing a problem then pretending to solve it, rather than dealing with any number of the real and serious problems that currently threaten the credibility and integrity of F1.

Let’s start with the world champions: Mercedes had already made some minor tweaks to their 2014 livery between launch and the last race of last season (switching the turqoise strip on the front wing from the top half to the bottom half, and moving the AMG logo down from the airbox) and so the 2015 car has very much a minor evolution of the livery that was seen at Abu Dhabi. The main changes are that Epson are added to the rear wing endplate, and the black area on the engine cover is a bit more solid and pronounced. It’s also nice to see that the turquoise on the sidepod is now shifted to be entirely behind the Petronas logo, rather than skirting around it – which is something I’ve always wanted them to do.

It’s a shame that the rumours of them switching to an entirely silver livery turned out to be false, but I still like how the turqoise and silver go together, so while this is a little dull, it’s fine.

Over at Ferrari, it is of course also business as usual:

 

Most attention will be on the fact that they now have a decent nose tip, rather than anything to do with the livery. It’s nearly identical to last year, with the main change being around the rear of the car – the black section now swoops back out to the exhaust rather than curving straight to the bottom part of the sidepod, and it also fits better with the car’s lines along the side of the nose. Other than that, the main difference is that Alfa Romeo’s logo now appears where parent company Fiat’s previously did.

And with Toro Rosso, too, the changes are to be squinted for rather than being immediately obvious:

The gold and red stripes on the top of the sidepods and sides of the nose cone are in a slightly different layout from last year, but it’s only a very minor tweak. The other interesting point is that despite having a more traditionally F1-style nose this year, they’ve kept the tip of it blue rather than painting the whole thing gold. It looks a little odd, to be honest, and they might have been better off going back to the original design. But otherwise, this is a very nice-looking car that once again just suffers from being so similar to previous years. I know the painted bull is a major part of their identity, and I know I say this every year, but wouldn’t it be nice to see something a bit different on there now?

Finally, it’s worth noting that Red Bull have rolled out their 2015 car in a dedicated testing livery – a “camouflage” black and white paint job that’s seemingly intended to mask the specific lines of the car as much as possible so rival teams can’t get a proper look:

It’s absolutely mental, and it would be insane if it were in any way reflective of what their 2015 livery will actually be – but I’d love it if it somehow were.

Oh, and one more thing: the talk out of today’s testing is that Ron Dennis has claimed that at some point either before or during the upcoming season, McLaren’s livery “will change”. If you can imagine me making an incredibly sceptical face, do so now.

Which – hey! – it is.

Although we could do without the Chelsea badge.

Well, if they don’t care about their livery, I don’t see why I should care enough to write anything about it.

What I didn’t expect, therefore, was that for 2015 they’d make a shift back towards the livery’s initial inspiration. And while it’s still got problems… well, it’s probably the best stab they’ve had at it yet:

Several of us livery fans have been saying since 2011 that the Lotus would be a near-perfect livery if only they ditched all of the red (and other clashing colours, such as the green and yellow of the Lotus logo). They haven’t quite done that this year, but the volume of red on the car has been drastically decreased, and unsurprisingly, it looks a whole heck of a lot better as a result.

  

 

What with Williams sticking with their Martini job, and McLaren-Honda continuing to hint that white and red are on the horizon, 2015 (despite the reduced number of cars) is shaping up to be a livery year that I’m actually excited about. I hope it’ll last.

The Martini branding on the engine cover has expanded in size, which is good as it reduces the amount of plain white on the car and strengthens the overall look. Rexona, meanwhile, join as a new major sponsor on the sidepod, having last been seen over at Lotus. And there’s a tweak to the presentation of the race numbers, too – they now seem to be in a fairly straightforward, uniform font as opposed to last year.

All in all: it’s the Martini Williams yet again, and that’s something to be happy about. As we await the Force India launch at 3pm today, the 2015 launch season has got off to a pleasant start.