First off, though, a bit of housekeeping. Regular followers of the site may have noticed that we haven’t done our usual full slate of coverage of the launches this year – we started out doing so, but then a combination of work pressures, holiday and illness meant that I fell behind and wasn’t able to catch up before all the cars were out, and by then it was a bit too late. This, coupled with a few other things relating to the site (how it’s a not-for-profit site but one that has grown in size and audience over the years) have caused me to have a bit of a rethink regarding F1 Colours and its general purpose and ongoing future – you can read more about this at the end of the post.

But for now, given that I haven’t commented on most of the 2019 liveries yet, I’m sure you’re aching to see what the official F1C take on all of them is… so let’s get cracking!

Mercedes AMG Petronas

A really pleasant surprise here, with a new interpretation of the usual silver/turquoise/black that actually feels somewhat fresh. Turning the Petronas colouring into what looks like an illuminated strip gives it an on-trend, Formula E kind of feel, the dialling down of the black (actually now more of a dark grey) to just sit at the back of the car works well too – and the new pattern of mini Mercedes three-point stars is unusual but creates a strong motion effect. The only thing I don’t really like is the white race numbers – they sit well on the side view, but it’s a real shame not having Hamilton’s red 44 on the nose. Maybe that’ll change once the season kicks in. But otherwise, top work from a team we’re not usually used to seeing push their designs positively.

Score: 8/10 – Possibly the best livery Mercedes have ever had

Scuderia Ferrari

Another pleasant surprise, given that the initial addition of Mission Winnow to a so-called “new livery” partway through last season was somewhat disappointing. But here, the big news is that black has returned as the trim colour to a Ferrari – and while I’d still prefer to see it done in a way that looks more early ’90s-ish (that is, with fully black wings), it’s good to see, and sets apart Mission Winnow from the usual Marlboro stylings. Not certain that the engine cover logo looks brilliant in black lettering, and it’s a shame those lovely retro race number boxes have gone – but still, with what looks to be a different shade of red from recent years, this is a more striking Ferrari than we’ve generally been used to.

Score: 7/10 – Marks for changing the secondary colour, even if the application doesn’t fully work

Aston Martin Red Bull Racing

Well, yes. It’s still a decent-looking livery, but the differences between this and 2018 are imperceptible – just a Honda logo where previously there was TAG Heuer. Appreciate that they want to stick with something they think works, and the matt job does that – but what’s wrong with giving it little tweaks as the years tick by?

Score: 6/10 – It’s a nice-looking car, but one we’ve seen too many times by now

Renault Sport Racing Limited

See, like Renault have done! At first glance this looks identical to last year’s superb effort, but they’ve actually made minor tweaks to make it even better. The race numbers have been filled in (just like we asked!) and there’s also the really neat touch of making the inner wing endplates yellow – just to give the colour scheme a bit more of a pop. Would still like to see some more white thrown in there, but this is still a very smart car overall.

Score: 9/10 – Looks like a Renault ought to look, and pops off the track

Rich Energy Haas F1 Team

Oh dear. On the one hand, it’s not as if a largely black car with gold and white bits is terrible-looking. But if you’re going to appropriate the JPS livery with no actual connection to it you’d better make sure you get it note-perfect, and this look just hasn’t, with the white-logo half of the car working at odds with the gold-logo half. It’s definitely the best-looking Haas so far, but that’s not by very high standards, and the antics of their title sponsor have done little to inspire affection for the thing.

Score: 6/10 – Smart enough, but could be smarter, and has a distasteful air over it

McLaren F1 Team

The 2017 car was really nicely designed but wasn’t the right shade of orange. The 2018 car was the right shade of orange but wasn’t very well-designed. This is the right shade of orange… and actually designed. It’s fantastic. The team have wisely made more of a feature of a shade of blue that counterpoints the orange beautifully, and laid it on with a smart triangle-based design arrangement. Better yet, although still lacking an actual proper Title Sponsor, there are at least enough logos all over the place that it doesn’t look like the disappointingly blank canvas of last year. Even the red rear wing, which I should hate for being clashy, kind of works – with a big bold logo that makes the car look a bit Indy-ish. And then there’s those uniforms! All around, this is a massive win.

Score: 10/10 – Gorgeous, the best orange McLaren yet and their best livery full stop since the early West days

SportPesa Racing Point F1 Team

Well, that “new era” turned out to be something of a damp squib – the 2019 livery is basically just the 2018 livery with new blue sections added to account for new title sponsor SportPesa. And… it doesn’t really work, frankly. We know that an electric deep blue and the BWT pink can work well together, because we’ve seen plenty of fan mockups that do just that – but somewhere along the way they’ve got this wrong. It feels like they should have committed more fully to the blue, maybe keeping the pink as an accent colour, because this just feels like a cut-and-shut job of two different liveries hacked together. And given that the 2018 car was already a bit of a broken-up mess (but one that just about made it work in a mid-90s kind of way), it just leaves the whole thing feeling neither one thing nor the other. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if we see a change, with SportPesa taking over more prominently, before the season is out.

Score: 5/10 – It’s still nice to see the bold pink in the sport but this is a mess

Alfa Romeo Racing

The Sauber name may be gone, but their livery spirit lives on – and it’s baffling to me why the team have chosen to keep the boring white and blue front section of this livery, when it felt like a temporary job all the way back at the start of 2018. The metallic red is gorgeous and the adjustment of the Alfa logo compared with last year is an improvement, as is the extension of the red onto the halo – but I don’t understand why it hasn’t been allowed to take over the entire car. There’s a great livery in here just bursting to get out – maybe next year we’ll actually get to see it.

Score: 7/10 – Really nice colours but only half the car is pretty, the rest is dull

Red Bull Toro Rosso Honda

As you were for Toro Rosso, but honestly, did we ever want them to change? Not really, although I think around about now is the point where they could start to do something slightly different with the layout while keeping the utterly gorgeous colour scheme intact. With McLaren hitting an absolute home run with their livery, it could be said that this is only the joint-best livery on the grid this year, rather than the absolute best as it was for the previous two.

Score: 9/10 – For the first time, we’re knocking a point off for being identical to last year

ROKiT Williams Racing

I liked this more than most people seemed to at launch, but I have to admit that on track it’s not coming off as the most inspiring colour scheme – and given Williams’ current woes, it may yet end up being associated with the final decline of one of F1’s greatest teams. I still think the main blue colour is strong, even if the blurred/spraypaint effect where it blends into the white isn’t the best; and the red of new sponsor ROKiT could be better integrated into the livery itself rather than just being part of their logo. It also suffers from a problem the last couple of Martini liveries had, which is that too much of the car is in unpainted carbon – from the front view in particular, you can barely discern the livery, it looks like they’ve forgotten to paint the car.

Score: 5/10 – Wouldn’t be surprised if, one way or the other, this livery isn’t on the grid next season

So there we have it – and a bit of a surprise as, purely on points, the Toro Rosso doesn’t take the title this time around, thanks to an absolutely brilliant effort from McLaren. It remains to be seen whether performance on the track will live up to the livery quality (it’s McLaren, so… probably not)

There’s disappointment here and there, with a feeling that the likes of Haas, Alfa and Racing Point could be doing more with what they’ve got; but with particularly strong efforts from McLaren, Mercedes, Renault and Ferrari, the current trend for a colourful grid and a spirit of invention in the livery game remains very much alive. We’re looking forward to seeing how all of these look up against each other on the track in Melbourne next weekend!

As for the update on F1 Colours in general – well, don’t worry, the site’s not going anywhere any time soon. I certainly don’t want to stop writing on here, but it is a one-man-band operation done entirely in my spare time. I was finding myself under a bit of pressure and anxiety to get the launch updates done this year, which is partly what led to just throwing my hands up and not doing it at all. But what I have found is that I still enjoy commentating on designs and rumours as they happen on Twitter. So from now on, while I will still do an annual roundup (like this one) every year, I’m not going to bust a gut doing news and launch coverage as site posts any more. Things move too quickly, teams don’t tend to launch in the same staggered way that they did when the site launched in 2007, and social media has picked up the baton for a lot of the chatter that goes on around the pre-season.

With that in mind, I’ve also undertaken a bit of a review of the archive content on the site – if we’re not doing new news coverage any more then I don’t see the point in having an outdated news section any more either, so I’ve taken the archives of news and launch coverage down (does anyone really want to go back and read a story about Toyota’s 2008 launch?) I’m also in the process of reviewing some of the older feature content, to ensure that the site is on a sound legal footing when it comes to image use, so you may notice some posts either come down or change as this is worked through (I’ve also been taking the opportunity to do minor rewrites/corrections here and there!)

In short, the site will keep on going, new features will continue to be posted from time to time (as I get the chance to do them!) including a new Livery Histories entry (finally!) that’s being worked on as we speak. And I do still intend to remain active with commentary on Twitter – possibly even moreso than before. But if you’ve wondered why some older/less relevant posts have disappeared from view, why images have changed or why there’s no new launch coverage – that’s basically the long and short of it.

Hope you enjoy sticking with us whether you’re new to the site or have been around since 2007, and I’ll be bringing you more in the way of the classic F1 Colours livery content you know and love before too long!

The post 2019 Liveries: The Verdict! appeared first on F1 Colours.

Whether or not this deal ends up actually happening – and if it does, if it ends up lasting – it’s the latest in a long line of energy drink partners getting involved with F1 teams. In some cases (well, one case) it’s a huge, internationally renowned brand buying not one, but two F1 teams and committing wholesale to them for well over a decade. But in other instances, a brand you’ve never heard of suddenly shows up on a sidepod for a few races and then disappears never to be heard from again. Indeed, if you’ve ever seen a random name on an F1 car and you’re not quite sure what the company does, then chances are, it’s a short-lived energy drink.

It’s unsurprising that the biggest energy drink brand in the world – the one that essentially brought the very concept to Western masses – is also the one with the longest history in F1. Red Bull were far from the massive corporate giant that they are now, however, when they first started sponsoring the Sauber team in 1995. Instead, they were an upstart young brand who were making waves through non-traditional and guerilla marketing efforts – and who saw F1 as a good way to further draw attention to themselves.

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Their first F1 livery is still one of the best they’ve had – a smart dark blue effort that pushed their brand prominently without any real competition. But from 1996 onwards, they were forced to share the limelight at Sauber with Petronas, who brought their distinctive turquoise onto the car. Red Bull remained title sponsor through 2001, but were somewhat overshadowed in terms of identification with the team by Petronas’ badging of Sauber’s Ferrari engine deal from 1997 onwards. So it was perhaps unsurprising that they reduced their involvement with the team from 2002 onwards.

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Not least because they had also moved into individual driver sponsorship, having founded a driver development programme at the turn of the century. Having started to bring drivers up to F1 via their “Red Bull Junior Team” (a rebranding of RSM Marko) in Formula 3000, their branding made it onto the Arrows of Enrique Bernoldi in 2001 and 2002, and Christian Klien’s Jaguar in 2004.

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In 2005, of course, they purchased the latter team – in the process ending their Sauber deal – and the rest is history. Despite initial scepticism over whether or not they would stick it out, they turned the Milton Keynes-based squad into one of the most successful and enduring F1 teams of the modern era, winning consecutive drivers and constructors championship doubles between 2010 and 2013. And they bought the ailing Minardi team at the end of 2005, turning them into their secondary Scuderia Toro Rosso outfit which has similarly endured.

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So it’s perhaps not surprising that other energy drinks brands have looked at Red Bull and decided they might want a piece of F1 themselves. And actually, while Red Bull’s sponsorship of Sauber began at the start of 1995, it was later that same season that another brand began a long association with the sport, in the shape of Hype Energy.

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Hype was launched in 1994 by one of the founders of the Hard Rock Cafe, and made its first appearance on an F1 car in 1995, taking over a significant part of the Arrows (Footwork) car from the Portugese Grand Prix onwards.

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For 1996, however, Hype set their sights further up the grid – and nabbed a smaller, but more prestigious, slot on the barge boards of the then-constructors’ champions, Benetton. And the following year, they sponsored that year’s reigning champions, in exactly the same place on the side of the Williams; and with the same strategy of using a bright fluorescent colour that was totally at odds with the rest of the livery and had the presumably desired effect of making people go “What the hell is this Hype thing?”

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By the end of 1997, however, Hype had left the paddock, concentrating on other areas of motorsport instead. But their association with F1 didn’t end there, as former Jordan driver Bertrand Gachot got involved with their distribution, eventually becoming the company’s CEO. In 2014, he got them back into the sport by way of a deal with Caterham driver Andre Lotterer – and the following year, they began to sponsor Force India, which they continue to do to this day.

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It’s worth noting, incidentally, that Hype only became available to buy here in the UK earlier this year. Indeed, non-availability in many of the countries that watch the sport is often a recurring theme for energy drinks brands that get into F1. Take Power Horse, one of the earliest competitors to Red Bull. They entered F1 during that same mid-90s heyday – in fact, they replaced Hype as a sponsor of the Arrows team in 1996, having debuted earlier that year briefly on the Ligier.

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Arrows had two different liveries in ’96 – they switched to an all over red and blue scheme when TWR took over fully – but although Power Horse were a prominent sponsor, neither livery was based around their silver and red colour scheme. The same was true in 1997, when Arrows switched to a white and blue livery, with Danka as their title sponsor. Power Horse continued to sponsor the team with a prominent rear wing slot – but dropped out partway through the season amid rumours of financial difficulties.

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The brand still exists, but is not generally available in the UK. Amusingly, Power Horse also had a corner named after it at the Osterreichring, during the 1996-2003 period when it was known as the A1-Ring. Unsurprisingly, the name did not continue when Red Bull bought the circuit.

1997 seems to have been the peak year for energy drink products appearing on cars – as, along with Red Bull on the Sauber, Hype on the Williams and Power Horse on the Arrows, there was another tie-up – NRG, who had a small sponsorship deal with Tyrrell for that year only. Like Red Bull and Power Horse, NRG hailed from Austria – but they were a much shorter-lived venture and seem to have disappeared by around the turn of the century.

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Meanwhile, maybe there was just something about the Arrows team that made energy drinks want to sponsor them, but there was a fifth such brand that made an appearance on their cars between the mid-1990s and their 2002 demise. This one, however, was a doozy. It all began in 1999, when Nigerian Prince Malik Ado Ibrahim bought a 25% stake in the team. As part of his marketing efforts, he came up with a brand called T-Minus, which was initially trailed mysteriously via a “countdown” on the cars’ sidepods over the course of several races.

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When it was finally unveiled, it transpired that T-Minus was intended as a brand that could be licensed and applied to products by other partners. Whether or not it was actually a viable enterprise, we would never really find out – as Ibrahim, and the brand, had disappeared from F1 before the season was out. In the process, pretty much the only product that had ever made it out into the world with the T-Minus label on it was… you guessed it, an energy drink.

T-Minus wasn’t the only short-lived F1 related energy drink to make it into the world, either. In 2001, Eddie Jordan was emboldened by his team’s successes both on the track and in marketing over the preceding few years, and spun off his brand into a drink named EJ-10 (although curiously, the car of the same name had actually already finished competing, having run in the 2000 season). As with T-Minus, Jordan’s intent was that the name and branding could be applied across a wide range of different products licensed by other partners.

While it was initially successful, however, the drink’s launch coincided with a downturn in Jordan’s fortunes both on and off the track. They lost their famous Benson & Hedges title sponsorship (although the brand would still appear on the car in reduced form for a few more seasons), and were embroiled in a court case with Vodafone over a deal that was purportedly designed to replace it. Suddenly, having a vanity brand on the car looked less like the work of a team on the up, and more like one desperately filling space. In 2003 and 2004, the cars carried the branding of the spinoff drink V-10 (essentially an EJ-10 and vodka cocktail) but the writing was on the wall.

EJ-10’s failure didn’t put off other teams from trying to launch their own brands, though: and when Tony Fernandes’ newly-founded Lotus team pitched up in 2010, they quickly tried to branch out into the energy drink field as well. LR8 was the name of their “all natural” energy drink (named for “Lotus Racing” and the eight ingredients, apparently). Despite sharing a can design with one of my favourite ever car liveries, however, the brand quickly hit a snag, thanks to the dispute over the use of the name “Lotus”.

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While the team were still called Lotus in 2011, Fernandes moved quickly to rebrand the energy drink, with his team’s cars carrying the new brand EQ8 (no, I don’t know what it stands for either) for the next two seasons. EQ8 actually proved quite successful, making it onto UK high street shelves – but as Caterham began to struggle financially in late 2013 and 2014, the brand seemed to gradually disappear. It had a small presence on the first iteration of the 2014 Caterham livery, and also served as naming sponsor for Caterham’s GP2 outfit; but was nowhere to be seen once Fernandes sold the team later in the year.

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A rather more successful drinks brand, Lucozade, had a brief flirtation with F1 in the early 2010s, sponsoring McLaren between late 2011 and 2013. Their logo alternated rear wing space with the team’s title sponsors Vodafone, and given that it came so soon after Red Bull won their first title, it’s hard not to see the linkup as a deliberate bit of spoiling. Unfortunately for Lucozade, though, the sponsorship coincided with a significant dip in McLaren’s form, and when the team launched their Vodafone-less silver and black livery at the start of 2014, Lucozade were similarly nowhere to be seen.

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Of the various energy drink brands that have proven consistent competitors to Red Bull rather than flash in the pans in recent years, Monster Energy are perhaps the most prominent, with a marketing portfolio across a variety of different sports. They began sponsoring Mercedes in 2010, but stepped up their involvement once Lewis Hamilton joined the team.

Interestingly, Monster don’t position themselves so much as a sponsor of the Mercedes team, as they do of the drivers individually – Hamilton prominently, and Bottas almost kind of by extension/default – and they don’t brand on the cars themselves, only on the drivers’ helmets and uniforms. They’re a popular brand for fan livery designers to base cars on, though, and we wouldn’t be completely surprised if they stepped up their involvement to become a major title sponsor – if not of Mercedes then potentially elsewhere – in future years.

It’s clear, then, that Rich Energy are looking to improve their standing in a crowded market, by getting visibility in an area where two of the biggest players are (in one case extremely) prominent. Will they be another Red Bull, or another T-Minus? Haas obviously believe in them, having elected to give up title sponsorship of the team for the first time, but scepticism over their role in the Force India saga remains. Either way, we’ll find out next year…

The post Energy Drinks and F1: A Chequered History appeared first on F1 Colours.

First up, it’s Ferrari, and a bit of a change in that with the departure of Santander, there’s now almost no white on the livery:

I’m not sure quite how sold I am on red wings on a Ferrari – it looked good in 2007, but that was with the bold and striking Marlboro branding still in place. Here, the big empty red areas – especially on the rear wing and engine cover – just make it look like something’s missing. If you’re going to have big empty panels on your car, it surely makes sense to mask it by having different colours placed there – and in Ferrari’s case, it’ll always feel slightly lacking to me if it doesn’t also have predominant black and yellow.

Love the little Scuderia badge at the top of the halo, though.

Over at reigning champions Mercedes, meanwhile, it’s (unsurprisingly) pretty much business as usual, albeit with some tweaks here and there:

The Petronas branding has had its annual tweak, this time making the fibre-optic style swooshy patterns even more marked. But in the process, the volume of turquoise on the sidepod has decreased further, and I think I always prefer these cars when they’ve got more of it. The amount of black has been toned down as well, and while once again we see race numbers at the rear of the engine cover (it’s definitely an agreed trend, isn’t it?) I really don’t think the newly white-out 77 stands out the way the blue one did last year. Here’s hoping Lewis’ #44 is still going to be in red.

And finally, while they haven’t had an official launch yet, Toro Rosso have responded to a leaked photo from their filming day by releasing an official one:

Why settle for a leaked photo, when you can have an original ? #STR13 pic.twitter.com/yrD8L1REP9

— Toro Rosso (@ToroRosso) February 21, 2018

… and it confirms that the 2018 car will basically look exactly the same as the 2017 one (albeit now with Honda logos). Which, given that last year’s was one of the best liveries ever, is fine and dandy by us.

The post Catching Up: Mercedes, Ferrari, Toro Rosso appeared first on F1 Colours.

F1 launch patterns have shifted quite a bit in the past few years – when we first launched this site in 2007, it wasn’t unusual to get several launches in January, but nowadays it’s not considered likely to see anyone’s new car or livery until close to the first days of testing in February.

But to get everyone in the mood, and based on admittedly somewhat limited information, we thought we’d take a run through what we reckon we can expect from the various teams this year.

For 2018, there are a few major sponsor changes already announced – and possibly more still to come – and of course teams will also have to take into consideration such factors as the new Halo head protection and (with a full season to plan for it) the number and name display regulations.

With the caveat that it’s always possible for someone to spring a surprise (as multiple teams delightfully did last year, then, here are some team-by-team thoughts.

Sauber

Sauber stole a march on everyone by suddenly announcing at the beginning of December not only their tie-up with Alfa Romeo, not only their 2018 driver line-up, but also a revised livery. While the colours used are not without their charm – putting us in mind of the unused Force India test car – the application itself is (in true Sauber fashion) a bit bland and flat, especially after the delight that was their 2017 car. So here’s hoping when the car actually comes to rolling out, it’s had a bit more work done to the paint job. Of course, this is Sauber, so chances are this is exactly what we’ll see.

Mercedes

There’s no reason to expect a change in approach from Mercedes this year – the car will likely be silver, black and turquoise yet again. They do mix it up slightly each year, but we’d be amazed if there were any major alterations this time around. Hopefully they keep the different-coloured race numbers for Hamilton and Bottas, as that was a nice touch.

Ferrari

Ferrari have lost the sponsorship of Santander, which may mean a significant reduction in the amount of white on the car – although they are still technically supported by Marlboro so don’t expect to see it disappear entirely, nor for the shade of red to go back to a darker one. But if we got back black wings? We’d be happy with that.

Incidentally, Ferrari are the only team so far to announce a launch date for their 2018 car: they’ll do so on 22nd February.

Red Bull

Excitingly, Red Bull have got a new title sponsor in the shape of Aston Martin – although it’s somewhat confusing that the team that’s named after a drinks company now has a car company as a non-technical sponsor. The big question is whether RBR will simply work the Aston logo into their existing blue colour scheme, or if they’ll do something dramatic and pick from one of Aston’s classic sets of racing colours. Despite the fact that we like the matt blue job they’ve had for the past couple of years, we’d very much like to see them do the latter, especially if it involves green.

Toro Rosso

Worryingly, Toro Rosso have officially added “Red Bull” as a sponsor name on the entry list this year – which may mean that the company will be compensating for the presence of Aston Martin over at the other team by increasing their branding on the junior squad. Given that the 2017 Toro Rosso was one of the most beautiful cars of the modern era, it would be a real shame if they went back to traditional Red Bull blue, red and yellow. Fingers crossed it’s just about the name and we basically get the same car again this year.

Force India

The pink BWT car was fantastic in theory but slightly disappointing in execution – maybe due to the rushed way in which it came out. Hopefully this time around we’ll see something that’s had a bit more time spent on it, and a bolder shade of pink. There could possibly be more blue involved this year, too. Either way, the main hope is that they sort out doing the race numbers properly this time…

McLaren

McLaren delighted us by going orange last year – but it wasn’t enough for some fans, who wanted a more traditional shade and scheme, a feeling that was only enhanced by the classic look of Fernando Alonso’s Indy 500 entry. The good news is that the team have hinted that they could shift to the “papaya” orange for 2018, with Zak Brown – a man who really does seem actually interested in liveries and what people think of them – saying “I think the fans want us to go to papaya orange. When we did the IndyCar we had an overwhelming amount of ‘please make your F1 car like that’, so we are waiting on a few sponsor decisions which can also dictate what a car looks like.”

But is it too much to hope that Alonso switches to using that wonderful retro helmet design, too…?

Williams

Until we hear otherwise, it looks like Williams are sticking with their Martini deal for at least another year – so Williams being Williams, expect the car to look extremely similar again.

Renault

Having landed on a pretty strong and “Renault-ish” livery for 2017, it would be surprising if the team moved heavily away from it this year – they probably have other things on their mind, to be honest. We’d love to see white introduced as a third main colour to take them properly back to their 1980s roots, but otherwise we have no real complaints with how the car looks these days.

Haas

Anyone’s guess, really, given that the team decided to change their 2017 livery partway through the season to something bland and grey and white. Maybe we’ll get something more exciting this year – they pretty much have a blank canvas to do what they want, given the lack of sponsor pressures – but I’d be wary of making any serious predictions.

Those are our thoughts – what do you reckon? Anything you particularly want to see on the grid this year, or any developments we’ve missed? Let us know!

The post What to Expect in 2018 appeared first on F1 Colours.

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.

When Mercedes launched their car, most of the attention was on the shape of the thing rather than the livery – as the reigning (multiple) champions, how they’ve interpreted the new regulations is perhaps under more scrutiny than any other team; and what’s more, they’re just about the only team so far not to have one of those stupid shark fins/sails/flags/whatever you want to call it sticking out the back of the engine cover.

As for the livery, though, there have been tweaks from last year. Yet again they’ve made a slight change to the way the Petronas turqoise is applied to the car – it’s now in electric-looking strands that extend right the way along the side of the nose cone, and on to the front and rear wings. But they still haven’t made it so that the Petronas logo itself is completely backed by turquoise – it still runs partly onto the silver. So it still annoys my slightly pedantic tendencies.

Over at Ferrari, meanwhile, it’s perhaps not surprising that after a pretty unsuccessful season on the track, the team have ditched the white top half of the car and gone back to a red engine cover. However, the presence of that flipping shark fin means that there is an area of the car that gets painted white. It’ll be interesting to see, if the fins do end up being got rid of at some point, if the white moves onto the engine cover or is lost entirely.

Otherwise, we also now have white rear wing endplates (which, unless I’m mistaken, is for the first time ever?) and thin stripes along the side of the monocoque. To be honest, it’s all looking a little busy, and even though it’s basically just “a red car with some white bits”, the sheer number of logos the car has on it means that I think the team could do with having a bit of a rethink of how they work things at some point. It’s also kind of ironic that at a time when most teams don’t have many sponsors, Ferrari – the team who always got by without needing them so much back in the day – now have loads.

And then there’s Williams. Who… yeah.

Basically the same as last year – with the addition of JCB as a new sponsor on the rear wing plates – but like Ferrari (and unlike Force India) they’ve made use of the big old flat panel to extend the Martini branding. Which actually looks nice, notwithstanding the big horrible rectangle it’s printed on to. What I’d really like to see with Williams is the basic colour scheme kept (I really like how the blue sponsor logos look on the white), but just with the Martini stripes taking over more of the back of the car. Except not on a big shark fin.

Oh, and a bit of breaking (well, it was breaking a few hours ago) news – the Haas has been spotted out on track at a filming day:

Hmm. It could just be the light, but it appears they’ve simplified the livery to make it look like last year’s McLaren. Not sure if want. We’ll find out more tomorrow!

The post Roundup: Mercedes, Ferrari, Williams launch, Haas glimpsed appeared first on F1 Colours.

First up it’s McLaren, who it’s fair to say we’ve given a significant amount of stick to for their liveries ever since their Vodafone deal ended. But this 2016 effort… well, it’s certainly the best they’ve had since the chrome job went away:

You still get the sense that Ron Dennis feels like livery designs and sponsorship are something that should happen to other teams, not his. But if we accept that we’re never going to get either a white/red Marlboro homage nor an orange McLaren ever again, then this is an ongoing team identity that’s much easier to get behind than the terribly bland silver and black that preceded it. Certainly, if they’d launched with this back at the start of 2014, I think we’d all have been a lot more favourable about it and them. Can they give us some more interesting team uniforms to go with it, though?

On to Mercedes, then, who unsurprisingly stick with the silver-with-black-and-turquoise that’s served them so well so far. Again, though, this might be the best implementation of it that they’ve yet had:

And finally, we come to Williams, who unsurprisingly have made basically no tweaks whatsoever to their 2015 livery, despite some minor changes in sponsorship placement:

 

And of course, we’ve had another team launch their car today… but we’ll have more on that one a bit later.

The post Evolution Not Revolution for McLaren, Mercedes and Williams appeared first on F1 Colours.

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:

 

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

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.

The post Launch Roundup: Ferrari, Mercedes, Toro Rosso appeared first on F1 Colours.

But what it omits, of course, are the liveries that have been designed since F1C launched. And so I thought it was about time to take stock of the last eight years of liveries, and come up with a list of my favourite ten since the site began. Once again, this is a strictly personal choice, and shouldn’t be taken as an attempt to come up with an authoritative “best” – and I welcome any and all debate in the comments!

10. Ferrari Marlboro (2007)

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F1 Colours began just as the era of tobacco sponsorship in F1 was finally coming to an end – and some would say that this could be considered a contributing factor in the often unimaginative use of livery design in those years since. It’s hardly coincidence, either, that what I think is the best Ferrari of these years is indeed the last one to feature the Marlboro logo – although it only did so for a handful of races, as most circuits were in countries that had already banned cigarette advertising. While I still think Ferraris look best in a darker red and with black wings, I did prefer this striking all-red effort to the white-winged cars that have dominated in the years since.

9. Mercedes Petronas (2011)

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Mercedes have never quite hit on a perfect version of their livery – every time they improve it in one area, it seems they mess up somewhere else – but I think the best attempt was their second one. Removing the black accents of the 2010 car in favour of increased turquoise for Petronas, it made the best of a combination of colours that shouldn’t really work, but somehow does. I still wish the turqoise patch covered the entire sidepod, but it’s a minor complaint. This, too, was a car that still had the classic ’50s-style white circles on which to put the race numbers – a baffling omission on the most recent cars.

8. Super Aguri (2008)

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Ah, loveable Super Aguri. Their red and white colour schemes were functional throughout their short life, but they got better with each successive year – and their last car was definitely the best, introducing black as a strong third colour. It’s only a shame that it was only actually ever seen at four races, before the team’s sudden winding-up.

7. AT&T Williams (2007)

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I was a big fan of the 2006 Williams – what can I say, I just like that blue-and-turquoise combo – and while the next year’s car wasn’t as good, it was still a lovely, neat and smart effort, and among the very best of the team’s post-BMW blue-and-white era. Although I’m still baffled as to why AT&T were kept on as title sponsor with such a small presence on the actual car itself…

6. Lotus Renault (2011)

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Look, let’s not go into the politics of it all for now. I still think it’s mad that Renault chose to rebrand themselves in this way, particularly when there was another team using the Lotus name on the grid. And it still would have been a heck of a lot better without the red wing endplates. But there’s no denying that this car looked absolutely terrific on the track – which makes it all the more baffling that they continued to tinker with it in successive years, until by 2013 it barely resembled any kind of JPS homage.

5. HRT (2011)

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Yes, it would have been much better if they’d actually managed to find sponsors to fill those “YOUR LOGO HERE” boxes. Running the whole season without doing so did make them look rather sad and pathetic. But with or without that unique marketing angle (truth be told, more with it than without it) this was a striking and memorable livery for a team that were badly in need of the kind of attention such a good design brings.

4. Virgin Racing (2010)

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In any other year, the first Virgin (pre-Marussia) car would have been easily the best-looking on the grid. An excellent combination of red and black, with white trim, it looked like something Dennis the Menace would drive – well, with the exception of that floral pattern (maybe Walter the Softy got his hands on it). Successive Marussia cars weakened the overall look of the livery, but could never quite shake off the brilliance of the colour combination.

3. Martini Williams (2014)

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I know that a lot of the love for the Martini Williams is more about what it represents than what it actually is. And I know that there are at least ten concept liveries made by fans that would have looked even better. But this is still a phenomenal livery, from a time when the sport really needed one. It’s a long time since Williams did anything that could be remotely construed as “flashy” – and this managed to do that while also showing an admirable amount of simple class and restraint. At the end of the day, it’s a car with proper racing stripes on it – how can you not love that?

2. Renault (2010)

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Renault were a running joke on this site for the first few years I was running it, thanks to the spectacular awfulness of their ING-based liveries. So it was refreshing to see that not only did they pull an absolute humdinger out of the bag for 2010 – but that also, with the exception of those blasted Total wing bits, it was exactly the design everyone wanted them to. The effect was muted a little bit once HP were added to the engine cover and the bumblebee-esque stripes were hence phased out, but this was still an absolutely superb car. Indeed, I think a lot of my hostility towards the 2011 Renaultus is as much based on losing this after just one season as anything else.

1. Lotus Racing (2010)

Well, this can’t really be any kind of surprise to anyone who’s been reading the site for any length of time (and certainly not to those who saw my reaction to it when it first came out). Ignore the fact that they shouldn’t really have had the name. Ignore the fact that it now represents a rather sad, short-lived, ill-fated F1 enterprise that symbolised bad management and ended in ignominy. Ignore the fact that the car itself is a boxy, ugly shitbox that looks as slow as it actually turned out to be. And instead simply rejoice in the fact that it’s a metallic green car with a big yellow racing stripe down the nose. It’s not just the best livery that’s been announced since I was running the site – it’s one of the best since I’ve been watching F1 full stop.

The post The 10 Best Liveries Since F1 Colours Began 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.