Everything as you’d expect, here – a tweaking of the usual blue livery with the red/blue/silver corporate lines. Note the rear wing, though, being used to advertise Red Bull Cola. It’d be quite nice if one of the two teams (if not the main one, then perhaps Toro Rosso) decided to deck their whole car out in that red/white/blue colour scheme for a bit of variety, don’t you think?

Elsewhere, Force India have clawed back some respect from this website after their shocking McLaren copy-job last year, by going for something a bit more distinctive :

Alright, so there’s still too much white – but in the absence of Honda (of whom more later) and Super Aguri, that’s not quite such a bad thing. I like that they’ve gone for a scheme that’s more in keeping with their team’s name and theme, making it clearly and immediately identifiable. Although it does look rather “cheaper” than last season – you can’t help but feel it has more of the look of a sponsorless, financially-struggling back-of-the-grid outfit. Oh, incidentally, confession time – images of this livery leaked a while back thanks to FI’s official 2009 calendar, which a reader kindly emailed me, and I COMPLETELY FAILED to get round to covering it, despite it being exactly the kind of scoop the blog was set up for!

So too, in fact, were those leaked pictures of the Williams livery that were around a short while back. Once again, the Grove outfit have eschewed an official launch, but have been running on-track at Jerez in what would seem to be their definite ’09 colour scheme. It’s pretty much as you’d expect – the usual blue and white of recent years, with the sponsors shuffled round a little :

As ever, I like it. It’s perhaps a bit simple (like almost every team, it’s low on sponsors – not inherently a bad thing, of course, but it does leave the car looking a bit un-dynamic), but I like the shade of blue (I can’t tell if they’ve changed it this year, though – on-track it looks the same, but in those promo pictures it’s rather lighter) and the shifted swooping lines are neat. Gawd knows what’ s going on with those shark-fin things, though.

And finally, although there’s not been a launch, and there are no pictures or anything to share, I’ve heard murmurings that the soon-to-be-renamed former Honda team, possibly to be known as Brawn Racing, could be running a light-blue and white livery this year. Which would make for a nice bit of variety, I’m sure you’ll agree. Hopefully we’ll find out if/when they show up for testing, but if it does turn out to be correct, remember that you heard it here first. Unless you didn’t.

But did you have to make it look quite so much like the BMW? Didn’t you get the memo? There are too many white cars on the grid. Never mind…

Still, it’s probably just about the best ’08 livery so far. Even if the uniforms are a bit crap.

Alternatively, someone high up in the team has simply gone bonkers. Or is perhaps on drugs. Anyway, I’ll stop waffling and give you the picture – we’ll find out on Monday if it’s real, and if so, there’ll be plenty of discussion then :

(picture from F1Racing.net)

It continues Williams’ recent tradition of having the nicest, smartest liveries on the grid; but weirdly, as I mentioned back when posting the leaked pictures, it actually feels more like a step back towards the 2001-05 BMW Williams livery. The shade of blue is lighter than on last year’s car, and the overall arrangement is more in keeping with that BMW design. I’m not sure it’s as nice as last year’s, but it’s still a good livery, which is pleasing to see when you consider how bad (or boring) some of the others have been this year.

The uniforms, too, are quite nice and simple – albeit with perhaps a bit too much white as opposed to blue. It’s interesting, too, to note the prominence that Lenovo get as opposed to title sponsor AT&T. It’s unclear as to whether or not this will be the car to help Williams bounce back from their 2006 slump, but it’s certainly a nice-looking one.

Meanwhile, two more launches have taken place since the Renault Monstrosity, but they were fairly devoid of interest so I didn’t report on them at the time, preferring to wait until the Williams launch to mention them. Honda launched their car, but we’re being forced to wait for their “dramatic” new livery (they’ve been running it in all black, which I’d be more than happy to see be the basis of the final look, actually – we haven’t had a decent all-black car since the gorgeous ’98 Arrows, and it’s about time); while Red Bull, as expected, launched something that looked almost exactly the same as previous years, albeit with a slightly different configuration of lines across the side and nose, and a new sponsor in the form of Metro. Nice uniforms, though.

Only three teams left to launch, now (along with the Honda livery, of course), over the course of February and March; and so, as the season starts to get underway, in addition to commenting on any changes that teams’ looks undergo, I’ll start getting to work posting some of the retrospective articles that I’ve got planned. I’ll be starting by looking at the histories of some famous teams’ liveries – so expect articles soon on Benetton, Jordan and Arrows…