In the past we’ve done roundups of fan-created livery designs looking to the next year, but this time around, rather than gathering the work of several different artists on the same teams, we’re looking at just one artist who’s gone particularly above and beyond in terms of visualising the 2018 season.

Daniel Crossman is one of our favourite up-and-coming designers (we hesitate to say “fan designer” or “amateur designer” about the likes of Daniel and Sean Bull, because that overlooks the fact that they do actually do professional design work within motorsport) and he’s one of several who are turning out designs that are more immediately fan-pleasing than the ones that we often see on actual cars.

(Incidentally, we know that fantasy designers are, of course, not subject to the same design considerations as the designers of actual working team liveries – so when we say a design looks “better” than the one on an actual car, we say it with the knowledge that there might be reasons why this the case beyond simple aesthetic decisions. We also say it, in this particular instance, in the knowledge that 2017 was a vintage year for excellent F1 liveries almost entirely across the board.)

Anyway, Daniel has not just done a few different concepts for the 2018 season – he’s worked out multiple possible designs for every team on the grid. Some of these are based on rumours about new sponsorship linkups are rebrand, and others are from the realm of pure fantasy – but what they all are is excellent. So we’ve decided to go through each team that he’s done a portfolio for, and pick out our favourite – to make a complete Fantasy 2018 Grid designed entirely by him. And we’ve even included one of his designs for a non-existent “returning” team, just to add an eleventh car to the grid.

Note that some of these designs don’t take into account driver and engine changes that have happened since they were done!

MERCEDES

Keeping it simple, what’s good about this Mercedes design is that it strips back the amount of black that has crept onto the car in recent years. It’s understandable that the Petronas turquoise needs to be on there, but the original “Silver Arrows” identity has been somewhat lost of late, and restricting the black area to the shark fin is a good way of dealing with it.

FERRARI

Like us, Daniel clearly hankers after the days when the secondary colour on a (darker red) Ferrari was black, rather than white. The team may not have been massively successful in the early ’90s, but the cars were at their best-looking ever, and we’d love to see a Scuderia livery that homages that.

RED BULL

Well, this is a biggie. It’s not considered all that likely that Red Bull will actually completely change their colour scheme to match the new Aston Martin title sponsorship – but as this design shows, it would be absolutely flipping amazing if they did. I’m not generally a fan of fluorescent colours on F1 cars, but I do like this Brawn-style yellow, and it goes so well with the black and classic racing green.

FORCE INDIA

The bold and striking pink BWT livery got Force India a lot of headlines in 2017, and I hope they stick with the concept going forward. But equally, it was a bit of a rush job, and it would be nice to see it evolved into something a bit more deeply thought-out this time – and to go for a richer shade of pink than the slightly washed-out look of the 2017 car. Daniel’s other Force India concepts made use of black as a secondary colour, but I really like the bold step of mixing blue in with this one.

WILLIAMS

Gasp! It’s not Martini! That’s because, as we’ll see later, I’ve constructed this grid on the premise of Williams losing their prestige sponsor at the end of this year. Largely because, while it’s still a lovely livery, it would just be nice to see something done a bit different – both with Martini, and with Williams. A red Williams (calling back to 1998) would be fantastic, but I doubt that’ll happen – so let’s instead have them look to their glory years with a terrific blue and yellow ’80s/early ’90s inspired design.

TORO ROSSO

Let’s face it, there’s not very much that needs to be improved upon with this livery. Daniel has another concept that sees white introduced as a major colour, but I prefer sticking with the Prost-style metallic blue and red, and just shuffling the pattern of the colours around a bit. It looks fundamentally the same, but I really like the idea of splitting the colours behind the bull on the engine cover.

RENAULT

Renault have got the colours right these days, but could possibly stand to apply them in a more interesting way. Taking inspiration from the fantastic striped 2010 car – with more than a bit of Buzzin’ Hornets Jordan in the mix too – this one does the job just fine.

HAAS

It’s not that a grey and white car is inherently a bad idea, it’s just that the 2017 Haas was so dull with it. This is an improvement not just by shifting more towards silver – brightening the whole thing up generally – but also giving a bit more of an American identity with the subtle stars and stripes.

McLAREN

I love that McLaren actually went orange for 2017 so much that I don’t even mind that they didn’t go the whole hog with it. But it’s hard to deny that the fully orange IndyCar that Alonso raced was far more striking than the F1 team’s livery. Daniel hasn’t designed a fully orange McLaren – maybe because it’s not that much of an artistic exercise! – so of his concepts, I’ve picked the one that’s closest to that. Really, though, I’d be happy with one that left out the black almost entirely, and had the logos and race numbers in blue, to give a truly 1960s Bruce McLaren feel (such as with this one of Sean Bull’s).

SAUBER

We’d be more than happy for Sauber to keep their fantastic 2017 livery, but on the other hand… well, just look at what Daniel’s done here. It’s a bit of a leap based on the possibility of Alfa Romeo becoming involved with the team – he also did some white, Alitalia-sponsored designs that are well worth a look – and thus tempting over Martini to recreate a truly classic late 1970s look. Well, wouldn’t you want to see this on the grid?

STEWART

Because, well, why not? And because with the Martini Williams gone, we don’t have a white car within this set. Stewart’s first couple of liveries were a bit muggy, with a cream shade of white and slightly boring application of the tartan, but they switched to a much sharper and brighter look for 1999. I was never really disappointed that we didn’t see it after that season because it was immediately replaced by the green Jaguar – but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be nice to see it make a comeback. Question is, would they factory-share with Red Bull, or what…?

Check out more of Daniel’s work on Behance, and keep an eye on our Twitter for more of our favourite fantasy designs!

The post Fantasy 2018 Grid – by Daniel Crossman appeared first on F1 Colours.

2016 promises to be a fairly exciting year for new designs, as we’ve not only got one entirely brand new team joining the grid in the shape of Haas, but there are also some changes in ownership and/or main sponsors that threaten to shake things up after 2015 largely continued along similar lines to 2014. There might finally be a major change to Red Bull’s livery now they’ve linked up with the red/white/green TAG Heuer, plus of course with Renault completing their re-buyout of Lotus we should hopefully we the return of their classic yellow and black to the grid. Rumours about other manufacturers such as Audi and Aston Martin joining the fray at some point refuse to go away, and we may even see a change at Manor/Marussia due to the departure of their original founders. And then there’s McLaren: surely they must have a title sponsor lined up this time around?

With all of this speculation, there’s naturally been a lot of fantasy-livery-making going on – and as you’ll know if you’ve spent any time on this site, fantasy-livery-making is something we utterly love. So here’s what some of our favourite designers – and a few new ones – have been up to.

A name that’ll be familiar to any of you who’ve seen these posts of ours before (or followed our Twitter) will be Camille de Bastiani. When he’s not busy actually designing liveries for Campos Racing, Cam has been doing a few fantasy liveries for 2016. Earlier this year he responded to reports that Haas might be running a yellow car with this sweet little number:

… but now that it looks like Renault are coming back in as Renault, perhaps Haas won’t go with yellow and black after all. Because there might be a car on the grid that looks like this, instead:

Updated version of my @RenaultSportF1 livery ! #F1 #2016 #photoshop RT if you want this to be real ! pic.twitter.com/sSW4MGSfhY

— Camille De Bastiani (@camdebastiani) September 7, 2015

Back when Red Bull’s engine situation was still heavily up in the air, Camille also gave us an interpretation of what the car might look like if the team linked up with Alfa Romeo branding:

What about a #RedBull with @alfa_romeo rebadged @ScuderiaFerrari engines ? Might look cool ! @wtf1couk @f1colours pic.twitter.com/atUkDTWKOZ

— Camille De Bastiani (@camdebastiani) September 18, 2015

We haven’t yet seen a fantasy Red Bull-TAG, by the way, but as soon as someone does one we’ll be all over it!

Back to Haas for a moment, here’s an alternative possibility for if they went with Ferrari-inspired red (albeit with a slightly American twist), courtesy of Jerome Ghera:

While we liked the 2015 Force India livery a lot, it’s likely that it’ll see a change this year – due to rumours not only of them potentially becoming Aston Martin (of which more shortly), but also a reported tie-up with Johnnie Walker as a main sponsor. Here’s an interpretation of the latter, by another of our old favourites Tim Holmes:

But what if Force India did become Aston? This concept design from Borja Sanz is labelled as a 2017 car, but features several of FI’s current sponsors so could quite easily be a 2016 design as well. Wishful thinking, maybe?

@AMR_Official 2017 #F1 #Livery #Design #Concept pic.twitter.com/WdrK8wMukQ

— Borja Sanz (@Borja_Sanz) November 6, 2015

A newcomer on the fantasy design scene – at least, we haven’t seen him before – is Andy Werner, but he’s made a big splash with some fantastic 2016 concepts that even go so far as to include race suits and (in some instances) teamwear. His Haas concept is a little more out there than the others, and is maybe a touch busy, but the colour scheme is gorgeous:

Back when rumours of a Red Bull-Audi linkup were at their height, Andy came up with a similarly dramatic interpretation of what that might look like:

He’s also had a crack at bringing Aston Martin to life (although not, it would appear, with any kind of link to Force India – love this colour scheme, though):

And finally, on somewhat safer ground, this is something we’ve wanted to see ever since those rumours first came about – a realistic 2016 Renault with the existing Lotus/Enstone sponsors!

Let’s face it, the real car’s almost certainly going to look disappointing compared to that.

If you’re a fantasy livery designer yourself, or if you see any kicking about that we haven’t yet spotlighted, feel free to let us know here or on Twitter, and we’ll round up some more when the 2016 season gets closer!

The post Fantasy 2016 F1 Liveries Once Again Probably Better Than The Real Thing appeared first on F1 Colours.

In some cases, there’s a desire to genuinely predict how things like the McLaren Honda might look – but in others, it’s simply a case of mixing up the established designs to come up with something fresh. Either way, two designers in particular have given us a deluge of absolutely gorgeous possible or alternate designs in recent weeks, so naturally we thought we’d take a look at them all.

First up we have Tim Holmes, who’s been posting his designs on his Facebook page, and has recently been spotlighted by the top blog WTF1. Tim has, like many people, been speculating on the 2015 McLaren, and his three designs are significantly different from one-another. They all include silver, but one (comfortably my favourite) is an obvious Marlboro homage, another makes use of classic McLaren orange, and the third is a somewhat more out-there heavily blue effort:

    

 

It’s the first time I’ve seen an alternative Red Bull design that I love that isn’t based on the colours of the can. Somehow, it manages to be based on the existing styling of the car, but just… absolutely loads better (with absolutely no spray paint in sight). Superb work.

Check out more of Tim and Camille’s terrific work at their websites. And if you’ve seen any other fantasy 2015 liveries (or indeed made any yourself) that you think we should feature, get in touch!

The post Fantasy 2015 Liveries Are A Big Thing Right Now And We Love Them appeared first on F1 Colours.

Some of these are ideas that I’ve already thought for a while that the particular teams should run (longtime readers may even recognise some suggestions that I’ve made in earlier posts!) In other cases, for the sake of rounding out the article, I’ve stopped to think about what might or might not work. As you’ll see, some are fairly close to the teams’ 2012 designs – others, however, are drastically different. Wherever I can, I’ve stuck to the 2012 (or 2011, where not yet launched) sponsor configurations of the teams – but on occasion I’ve imagined theoretical new sponsors.

I’m no professional designer, so my efforts might not be the most startlingly imaginative – you’ll probably note some recurring design themes, even – and I’m aware that the images don’t exactly look photo-realistic. Nevertheless, this is my representation of what I’d like to see…

(Oh, and the designs are pasted onto a generic 2011-looking car template that I found, rather than a 2012 stepped-nose variant… but I think we can all agree they look better that way!)

Red Bull

This is one that’s been a bee in my bonnet for years – although I don’t think the current Red Bull livery is especially bad or ugly, I’m disappointed in the lack of variety in recent years, and I think it would be great if they had a blue and silver paint job, echoing the design of a can of the fizzy energy drink. They used it as their test livery following their purchase of the team in 2005, and while it was slightly lacking in vigour, with a few tweaks it could work. Obviously in a quite flat, Paint Shopped-picture as above, it looks grey rather than silver – but with an actual, shiny silver, I think it could be quite dramatic.

McLaren

You can accuse me of being too backwards-looking with some of these liveries if you like – but given that they have a primary sponsor whose main colour is red, and that the chrome livery has arguably outlived its freshness… come on, wouldn’t a slightly Marlboro McLaren-themed livery look pretty darned awesome?

Ferrari

Another retro job, but a Ferrari just doesn’t look like a Ferrari to me unless it’s got black and yellow on the front and rear wings. We can lose that daft Scuderia Ferrari DefinitelyNotMarlboro patch from the engine cover, too.

Mercedes

I really like the current Mercedes livery, so I see no major need for change aside from expanding the amount of turquoise on the sidepod so that the Petronas logo doesn’t “leak” out into the silver. It needs to look a bit more solid, rather than just feeling like it’s been washed loosely onto the car.

Lotus

Only two things I’d really change about the retro Lotus livery, as I already mentioned when discussing the launch of the 2012 version: I’d change the yellow Lotus badge on the airbox to be simple gold text (as seen on the rear wing), and I’d lose the red endplates. Looks a lot neater, no?

Force India

This isn’t an idea that would have occurred to me before Force India launched a more heavily orange car the other week – but if anything, I think they didn’t take it quite far enough. But we know how great predominantly orange cars can look, don’t we? Hence, this dramatic design – with orange as the main colour, but white sections allowing certain sponsors to integrate a bit better, and green reduced to an accent rather than a primary feature. I’m quite pleased with this one.

Sauber

Slightly on to a loser attempting to integrate the team’s current sponsors with their chosen white/black-or-grey/red colour scheme… I can almost sympathise with how badly the 2012 car has come out, in fact. In an ideal world, this would be Telmex blue, but I tried to play fair and stick to Peter Sauber’s desired colours. Still don’t think it’s great, but it’s a bit of an improvement, maybe?

Toro Rosso

Obviously, this only makes sense when viewed next to the “parent” team’s car – but yes, this is a “Sugar Free” variant. Well, why the hell not?

Williams

This is basically the car that made me want to do this article in the first place – I wanted to see if the classic Camel/Canon livery could be applied to Williams’ current set of sponsors. And hey! I think it works. What with PDVSA’s red taking the place of Canon, and Embratel going nicely on the yellow engine cover… this almost seems like too perfect a combination. You could argue that doing liveries that call back an incredibly successful era when Williams are going as badly as they are is a bad idea… but if they were going to keep doing it, this would seem a natural way to go. Oh well.

Caterham

I don’t have huge problems with Caterham’s 2012 livery, although I do think it’s odd that they carried over the 2011 colour scheme given their eagerness to change the (utterly perfect) 2010 design after one year. So basically, my ideal Caterham would be the 2010 Team Lotus paint job, but with 2012 sponsors. Simple.

HRT

Biggest “leap” out of all of the designs, this. I couldn’t really figure out what to do with HRT, given their lack of sponsors and apparent lack of identity. So I thought, what the hell – what if they suddenly tied up a big new sponsorship deal, with one of the biggest companies in Spain? This was nearly a Repsol car, but instead I’ve gone with Telefonica – but flipped the corporate colours from the way the 2000 Minardi (still can’t decide if I love or hate that car, incidentally) used them. Well, it’s something different, at least.

Marussia

I don’t see a problem with having two red teams on the grid – so long as the second one isn’t too close to Ferrari’s shade – and so that’s the predominant colour I’ve gone with for this Marussia design. And in the interests of variety, I went for right-angled lines on this one, rather than simply following the car’s contours. At the time of writing the team have yet to launch their first car as main owners of the team, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they do stick with red/black/white – but if they were looking to shift more towards their own colours, I reckon they could do worse than this…

The post Fantasy 2012 Grid appeared first on F1 Colours.