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.

Last year saw more of a compromise between the two competing sides of their identity: the front half was yellow, the back half was black. It didn’t completely sate those of us who’d love to see them go full-on bumblebee stripey, but it did a good job. For 2018, however, things have changed again – and in the ongoing battle, it’s now the black side of things that’s very much coming out on top.

By which I mean to say: the 2018 Renault is quite similar to the 2017 one, only there’s more black on it this time.

The big difference is that whereas last year the entire monocoque was yellow, and everything else behind it (a few splashes aside) was black, this time around it’s only the nose that’s yellow – the sides of the monocoque are now black. This creates a particularly unusual effect, in that if you look at the car side-on, it’s black; but from the front, it’s yellow.

I could perhaps be accused of inconsistency in how I react to Renault having a car in this colour compared with other teams. Because it does look really good in the side-on view: uniform white sponsor logos (except, again, for that pesky Castrol) and splashes of yellow. And I’m a fan of many past black cars – among them Saubers, Minardis and Arrowses. But the problem is… it’s Renault. Renault don’t have to be black, they have yellow in their locker – and if you can paint your car yellow, then it’s this humble correspondent’s view that you should.

I’m also trying to figure out the shade of yellow on it – the 2016 car had this problem, in that it sometimes looked orangey and sometimes a more fluorescent shade. This one, though, does look like it’s a brighter and more striking yellow than last year’s slightly golder tint – more 2000 Jordan than 1999 Jordan, you could say. That should help it to stand out – from the front, at least.

But still, it absolutely cannot be denied that it’s a great-looking racing car – and as with the past couple of Renaults, we should probably stop thinking about what it could or should be, and instead enjoy what it is.

(Although I’m not entirely certain that those race numbers will pass “easily legible from a distance” muster. I would not be at all surprised to see them get filled in, like McLaren’s were last year, before we’re a race or two into the season.)

Meanwhile, for the second post in a row a piece of team launch news also comes with a piece of news about our designer friend Sean Bull, who announced this afternoon that he has been hired by Renault to work in their graphic design department! So that thing we said about how F1 teams should start looking to hire designers like Sean turned out to be… remarkably prescient. Huge congratulations to Sean, and we can’t wait to see what contributions he’ll make to the team’s design identity; although he did make us feel rather old when he said this:

cheers mate! like ive said before, your website as a kid really got me started on this! seeing all the obscure ones you found and sketching them out with felt tips was what i did!

— Sean Bull Design (@seanbulldesign) February 21, 2018

“As a kid”. Blooming heck.

The post Renault: The Fight Between Black And Yellow Continues 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.

Because after yesterday’s fantastic Sauber launch, today we’ve had a team that I honestly expected to run basically the same livery as last year, instead improving on their 2016 effort. Last year’s almost-all-yellow Renault was quite nice, but still something of a waste of having the team in the sport – if Renault are in F1, then basically, you want a car that looks like a bumble bee. Now, the new 2017 challenger may not be as good as their 2010 car, but it’s still a damned fine looking machine.

It’s not perfect, mind. The switch to predominantly black in the back half appears to me to be driven by the need to put new partner Castrol’s logo on the car in full colour; but the additional red and green in that logo, while small, slightly throw things off – it’d be better if they were kept in a uniform white. And from the front, the design looks a little blocky – I’d prefer slightly more in the way of swooping lines and other design elements rather than simply a huge expanse of yellow.

It’s from the top, actually, that the car looks the best, with the yellow lines extending out from the nose along either side of the engine cover, creating a pleasing speed-based effect. And switching the main rear wing plate to be yellow (with black either side) is a great touch. It’s also not totally clear from all of the launch event pictures, but it does appear from that top down view that the black is matt, which in the right light could end up looking absolutely fantastic.

So there we are. Two launches down, two pretty great new designs, and the promise of more surprises to come. Are we heading for the best year of liveries since 2010?

The post Renault: Pretty Much How We’d Want A Renault To Look appeared first on F1 Colours.

For the first couple of years of Renault’s return, they didn’t really succeed in meshing the old Benetton colour scheme with their own yellow. But it started to come together in 2003, with a really strong balance between the two. The later, title-winning cars are probably more well-remembered, but I’m less keen on how they dialled down the darker blue – this one gets it more right.

The post 2003: Mild Seven Renault appeared first on F1 Colours.

There have been many utterly great-looking Renaults to race down the years – white, yellow and black is a hard thing to get wrong unless you start to chuck an ING logo in there – but this is the best. The separation of the three colours into distinct blocks, rather than relying on the usual stripes, is striking; and you already know how I feel about those large engine-cover race numbers. 1983 was suddenly a quite strong year, with two cars (the Benetton-sponsored Tyrrell is the other) making my old top five of all time; but this is the one that edges it.

The post 1983: Renault Elf appeared first on F1 Colours.

It’s not perfect, I have to say. They’ve gone for an obviously Red Bull-inspired matte paint job which looks fantastic in certain light, and slightly underwhelming in others – in fact, in the main studio shots, it actually looks like a slightly dull gold, reminiscent of the earlier variant of the ’96 Jordan. And they haven’t really introduced anything in the way of design to it, except for the hexagonal shapes that were already on the black version.

But in the launch photos (hopefully more representative of how it’ll look in the wild, especially under the lights of Singapore) it does look rather more striking; and aside from anything else, the simple fact is that this is a bright and colourful livery that’s unlike anything else on the grid, and for that we have to applaud it. And while it’s not as good as the 2010 Renault, at least the Total logo isn’t in red this time.

But if it is, you know what? I don’t care. I actually like that they’ve responded in this way, rather than waiting out a whole season (in much the same way as McLaren, to give them credit, did with their 2015 car). And this feeling is strengthened by the comments made by Cyril Abiteboule in the aftermath:

After declaring that its bold colours were a sign of a bigger push to do things differently in 2016, its F1 chief Cyril Abiteboul has revealed that it is evaluating some radical steps with the looks of its car over the season.

Speaking about the motivation for the new yellow livery, Abiteboul told Motorsport.com: “We want to create a little bit of a talking point and buzz, so expect to see that sort of thing to be played with.

“The car is a fantastic platform. It is a billboard and I am just surprised that people don’t play more with it.

“I know that there are rules and you are not supposed to change too much – but we are going to push that. It is such an obvious and cheap thing to do when you want people to talk about it.”

Abiteboul said that Renault felt it important to move away from the corporate grey and black colours that had been adopted by rival teams, as he suggested rivals were not making the most of opportunities.

“Frankly F1 cars are ugly,” he said. “I am ashamed by what we are doing.

“And frankly some teams are doing even worse than the regulations are driving us to do from a performance perspective. So we wanted also to be just good looking.”

When asked why he felt liveries were so dull now, Abiteboul said: “I think it is because everyone wants to tell a story about being premium. And if you want to be premium, the obvious thing to do is to be on the dark grey-ish side.

“Plus you have the teams that will obviously be dark grey or silver like Mercedes and McLaren. So that is already two. And there are a number of teams that want to do the same.

“So, I don’t know why really people are not going a bit more bullish with their colours. It is like they want to disappear. We don’t want to disappear, it is a statement and there is no hideaway. We will have to deal with what we do on track.”

Abiteboul suggested that tweaks to Renault’s colours could come as early as the Bahrain Grand Prix, because the team was still working out how well the matte yellow it has chosen works on television and in images.

“It might happen as soon as race two because we are not 100% sure yet of the reaction and how it looks under different lights,” he said. “Adjustment is something that we are allowed to think on. But we would want to do more.

“I am thinking one good example is the BMW Art Car. Everyone will remember BMW for their fantastic cars: It is a fantastic platform and I am amazed that no one is making better use of that. Small things; small details – but why not?”

We couldn’t agree more, Cyril. And now that we have all the liveries, we can do our delayed 2016 roundup (including the Toro Rosso, which – er – we haven’t mentioned because they never really unveiled it, just started running with it in testing one day and it was basically exactly the same as before, right?), so look out for that hopefully before qualifying starts on Saturday morning. Hopefully.

The post Renault Give the Grid Some Colour appeared first on F1 Colours.

It’s certainly smart, there’s no denying that. A plain black car with just white sponsor logos can look fantastic, and there’s no harm in the additional yellow touches, either. I liked this livery fine enough when it was appearing on Minardis in the 1980s, for example.

But the disappointment, and the feeling that it’s all just a bit dull, stems from the fact that Renault’s return to F1 was supposed to herald the glorious return of yellow as a colour scheme for the first time since 2010. Alright, so there’s still a chance that Haas will go down that route (although sod’s law being what it is, what price they’ve also gone for a conservative, mostly-black job?) but when all’s said and done, we’ve had a fair few black cars on the grid in the last decade (including the last few run by this very team), so this doesn’t feel like the dramatic step into the brand new that we were all hoping for.

The post Renault Go Noir 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.