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.

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!

Red Bull

Perhaps the most interesting element of the liveries this year is how the various teams have chosen to try and mask the appallingly ugly front ends with a carefully-applied paint job. Some, like McLaren, haven’t bothered in the slightest – but Red Bull and sister team Toro Rosso have both decided to paint out the very tip, in the hope that at speed and a fair distance, the car will look more aesthetically pleasing.

Aside from that, it’s pretty much business as usual for Red Bull, with just a few tweaks to the Infinity scheme of last year. The purple paint looks a bit less messily applied this time out, and former Williams title sponsor AT&T also join the team with a tiny decal on the sidepod.

Toro Rosso

Similarly, there’s little in the way of changes on the STR – Falcon Private Bank have gone, so the front wing endplate has gone blue instead of gold, and there’s a little bit of a red and gold swoosh on the side of the nose cone (not entirely dissimilar to Lotus, as it goes), but otherwise, this is an STR that looks exactly as you’d expect an STR to. Despite being a bit sick of that painted bull, I still quite like this car.

Mercedes

 

The biggest change, though, is the black area on the engine cover. I’m not entirely sure what the reason for it is, but it works quite well – although like the turquoise bits, it feels like there’s not quite enough of it to impose its presence. Nevertheless, this is probably the best-looking car on the 2014 grid so far.

Ferrari

No major changes for Ferrari – and let’s just ignore the vaccum-cleaner nose altogether, shall we? – with the only real difference from last year being that the black section now sweeps up over the exhaust and rear engine cover. I actually quite like increasing the amount of black on the car, although it’s unusual for modern-era Ferrari – but I think it’d look even better if the wings were black, too. Then again, as a fan of late 80s/early 90s Ferraris, I would say that…

Lotus

What I really like, though, are the red/gold stripes on the side of the nose – it’s about the only place where the two colours are used harmoniously together, and it’s only a shame that motif doesn’t spread to the rest of the car, as it’s a distinctive look.

Sauber

I can’t see any changes on this from last year’s, except for Telcel no longer being on the rear wing endplate. So far, so Sauber.

Force India

So that’s now eight out of the ten teams who’ve revealed their liveries (although I’m still expecting McLaren will unveil a tweaked version with a new title sponsor before the season kicks off… I say “expecting”, I mean “hoping”), with just Caterham and Williams to come. Once again, it’s been a bit of an anti-climactic year so far for new designs, but kudos to Force India and Mercedes for trying to keep things a bit interesting…

Oh, dear.

    

The JPS-aping livery was already somewhat compromised in previous years by the red wing endplates employed in 2011 and 2012 – but after my initial annoyance at its use in the first place, I have to admit it had somewhat grown on me. But the sudden introduction of even more red (despite actually now mostly removing it from the endplates) is just ghastly. I don’t know why Genii want to suddenly have a big red patch on the sidepod, but it looks disgusting. There’s not even any reason for the driver-naming red-painted airbox to be there. The only place the additional red looks good is on the front wing – indeed, if the red were deployed throughout the car in this way, as a secondary stripe added to the gold, it could look kind of cool. But the patches just look splashed on with little to no thought – it simply doesn’t work. At all.

I suppose I can’t complain too much when a team actually bothers to change the livery, as it gives me something to talk about, but  bloody hell. This isn’t actually a completely unsalvageable mess – it could be half-decent, with some tweaks, although the cluttering of sponsor logos is also a big problem. But by gum does it need those tweaks – because right now, it’s just hideous, and from what I can see from Twitter and such, that’s a prevailing early opinion among fans.

And it’s still got a stepped nose.

Let’s look at Red Bull first, then, since (a) they’re reigning champions and so deserve it, (b) they have the least in the way of changes to talk about and (c) they’ve been strangely shy about putting pictures of their car online:

 

Talk of red endplates gives us a nice segue into Lotus, about whom I had the vague hope that they might have dropped said similarly-coloured wings. But no – they’re still there, present and correct:

  

Other than that – and entirely sensibly – it’s largely the same as last year, with the only changes being reshuffling of sponsors. Lada are gone, their spot taken by a possibly slightly too large and obtrusive anti-dandruff shampoo ad. Fellow Unilever brand Rexona also make it to the engine cover. The team still don’t seem to have learned that a big yellow Lotus badge doesn’t look all that great on this livery – but they have at least improved its nose cone placement, extending the gold tip and setting the badge within it in quite smart fashion.

Generally, with less cluttering of sponsors than last year and – that badge aside – smarter placement, this is overall an improvement on what was already a pretty darned stonking livery to begin with. Not that they can claim credit for the idea of it, of course, but let’s move on from that now.

Finally, then, to Toro Rosso: