First off, let’s talk about the livery itself. Well, for the most part, it’s quite smart – we all know just how good black and gold look as an F1 livery, and with the new Pirelli tyres in particular, it looks immediately classic. It’s ruined, of course, by the red wing endplates – and including the Union Flag on the sidepod purely in an attempt to reference the JPS livery even further is tacky and pointless in the extreme. Nevertheless, it’s got a lot of people on the internet very excited, and it is rather pretty.

But. It’s not a Lotus. What it is is an appallingly childish and petty piece of work. The team that are running this car are not Lotus, will never be Lotus, and have absolutely no right to evoke the history of that livery. For those unfamiliar with the whole tangled mess, I suggest reading this interview with David Hunt on Joe Saward’s excellent F1 blog, but the long and short of it is this – Team Lotus and Group Lotus (aka Lotus Cars) are, and always have been (at least since 1954), different things. Team Lotus ran an F1 team until 1994 (although just to add further confusion, for a brief time the Lotus Cars name and logo appeared on the Team Lotus F1 car due to a sponsorship deal), and the rights to race in F1 in that name have been held by David Hunt ever since. Group Lotus make cars, and are now owned by Proton, and leased the “Lotus” name to Tony Fernandes’ F1 team for 2010 – an act they got away with because there wasn’t another team in the sport licensing the Team Lotus name.

For 2011, Proton are trying to pull the same trick – having bought the Renault team, they’re now sponsoring it and thus referring to it as a “Lotus Renault” (it’s worth noting that the constructor name, as far as the entry list goes, is still officially Renault – the “Lotus” part is equivalent to the “Vodafone” in McLaren’s name, and this is how I suspect they’ll attempt to defend their actions should the FIA try to crack down on the whole fiasco). But now they’ve come up with this livery – a livery that harkens back to a team that this company had nothing to do with (besides sharing a name) – and, furthermore, a colour scheme that Fernandes’ Team Lotus (a name that they’ve now officially licensed from David Hunt, essentially becoming the inheritors of the old team’s history in the process) had already announced that they were going to run in.

It stinks, frankly. Proton/Group Lotus are trying to convince the public that they are the “real” Lotus team, and are using this colour scheme to try and back that up. But it’s stolen – it doesn’t belong to them. A smart car it may be, but it is not a Lotus – and like most Renault liveries over the past decade, it ends up looking like some weird half-breed of two things.

What’s particularly baffling is why the Renault team have agreed to go along with all of this – they’d spent 2010 carefully (and largely successfully) rebuilding their reputation thanks to the brilliant hiring of Robert Kubica and a concerted effort to disassociate themselves with the Briatore era. So why would they risk yet another PR disaster that’s just going to make the rest of motorsport annoyed with them? Anyone who knows their stuff knows that they’re essentially hijacking the legacy of the great Colin Chapman in order to score points off a team that managed to make themselves the most well-liked and well-respected of 2010’s rookie teams (although all three, even Hispania, gave pretty strong accounts of themselves, and confounded the doubters by going on to finish the season and make firm plans for 2011).

And for a livery fan, it’s particularly annoying – Renault had arguably the second-best livery on the grid last year, and now they’re ditching that brilliant piece of image reinvention for the sake of this cheap points-scoring. If we really do have four cars in near-identical liveries next year (and both called “Lotus Renault”, to boot), it’s just ridiculous – and I can only hope the FIA step in to do something about it (otherwise it sets a dangerous precedent – I wonder what would stop a team being “sponsored” by a newly-started company that happens to be called “Ferrari” or “McLaren”). Indeed, I suspect what’s probably going to happen is that Proton will eventually be forced to back down, and the team will run as “Proton Renault” (and hey, if they want a classic Lotus-style car, they could do a lot worse than running in Proton’s colours of yellow and blue). Then again, if they don’t, perhaps it will cause the Real Lotus to rethink their strategy of moving away from the wonderful 2010 livery. Every cloud…

In a move that is certain to excite Lotus fans and followers of Formula One™ around the world, Lotus Racing has announced this morning that its cars will be running in a black and gold colour scheme from the 2011 Championship onwards.

There’s no denying that the black-and-gold JPS livery is pretty much the most famous and iconic racing livery of all time. It was a wonderful car both in its original appearances in the ’70s, and later in the ’80s (when, for all his time at McLaren, the most evocative images of Ayrton Senna on-track could be found). But the thing is, there’s a crucial difference between that livery and the green-and-gold that Lotus are using this year. Green was a “Lotus” colour first and foremost – it was the team’s visual identity at their inception. That identity later changed, but entirely due to sponsorship concerns (it’s telling that every time the team were without a major sponsor, they went back to some configuration of that original look) – and the black-and-gold is a sponsor’s livery. It’s associated very heavily with Lotus, yes – but even more so with John Player Special. People know it as “the JPS car”.

This new car – of course, due to tobacco sponsorship legislation – won’t be sponsored by JPS. We don’t know who’ll be sponsoring the team next year, but unless it’s – say- Guinness, it won’t be their corporate colours defining the team’s identity. It almost feels like an arbitrary decision – and something designed to curry racing fans’ opinion. And that smacks of desperation from a team that were actually already doing pretty alright at being the best-supported of the new teams. I’m sure the car will look utterly fantastic, however it turns out – but is it the right move? I’m not entirely sure.

Incidentally, the second part of Lotus’ announcement is fairly exciting:

To bring the fans even closer to the team in its second season Head of Marketing Silvi Schaumloeffel today explained how the 2011 livery will be designed: “We have worked all year to make sure our fans are given unprecedented access to our team. We are all very excited about the move to a black and gold paint scheme for next season, and we want our fans to help us design the livery that will be racing around the world next year. We will shortly be announcing exactly how the fans can take part in our design process, so keep an eye on our website www.lotusracing.my for more details. The person who designs the livery we finally choose will be joining us at our first test next year to see the car out on track for the very first time, so for Lotus and F1™ fans it is the chance of a lifetime to help us take the next step forward in our amazing story in 2011.”

That is pretty awesome, you have to say. Budding designers, get your pens out!

(Oh, and I reserve the right to retract any reservations I have about this should the team suddenly announce Bruno Senna as a driver, obviously)

When sponsorship was first introduced into Formula One in 1968 by the Lotus team, tobacco companies were the ones most interested in sponsorship. The dangerous nature of the sport fitted with their rebellious brand images. The sight of James Hunt smoking a cigarette next to his Marlboro Mclaren looked almost as ‘cool’ as Humphrey Bogart in many of his classic films. However, times have changed, and smoking is no longer socially acceptable. A number of legislative acts have been brought in to ban tobacco advertising, and F1 has been affected. In 2000, six of the eleven teams ran a car with a tobacco sponsor logo on it; just ten years later, there are no cigarette company logos to be seen on any car or team uniform (unless you count the infamous Ferrari “barcodes”).

The banning of tobacco sponsorship in time for the 2007 season, however, couldn’t have come at a worse time for many of the teams, as the global recession hit and not as many companies had the money to buy expensive advertising space on the side of their cars. The teams therefore had to reduce the amount of money they spent annually in order to make F1 sponsorship a more cost-effective solution, and therefore a more attractive proposition for a larger number of companies.

The tobacco sponsorship era may have created some iconic liveries, such as the JPS Lotus, Rothmans Williams and Marlboro Mclaren, but its end doesn’t also mean the end of beautiful liveries. The reduced expense of F1 and changing image of the sport has opened the door to a wider range of companies who may be interested in the sport. Since the end of 2006, we have seen Red Bull continue to plough money into the sport, and surely the livery on their car will be remembered in years to come just as fondly as the aforementioned tobacco cars. The image of excitement, energy and danger still prominent in the sport is just as attractive to Red Bull in 2010 as it was the Marlboro in the 1970s.

On top of this, we have seen Virgin finally (after years of rumour and speculation) enter the sport, albeit for a completely different reason. The emergence of the Brawn team from the ashes of Honda with just two weeks to spare before the start of the 2009 season marked a brilliant opportunity for Virgin. Having spent the winter without much hope of survival, no testing and a compromised car which had been designed to accommodate a Honda engine but had to have a Mercedes bolted into the back, no one really rated Brawn’s chances. However, following the car’s first test it became apparent that it was going to be very competitive, and would certainly be capable of challenging the established championship winning teams of Mclaren and Ferrari. This fitted perfectly with Virgin’s underdog image – one which Richard Branson strives to enforce in any of his business ventures.

However, entering 2010 as world champions under the ownership of Mercedes and having hired the most successful driver in the history of the sport, Brawn’s team were no longer the underdogs and therefore no longer attractive to Virgin as they would only pollute the brand’s “underdog” personality. Branson therefore decided to support the new Manor team, which aimed to become the first team in history to design a car using only computers – a quirk that was again perfect for Virgin’s maverick image, and which therefore marked Manor out as the perfect team for the brand. The team were rebranded as Virgin Racing – partly so that a more recognisable name could itself assist in attracting further sponsors – and the team was moulded in Virgin’s underdog image.

These examples corroborate the belief of marketing academic Terence Shimp, who stated that a logo on the side of a car is no longer enough. Shimp believes that the personality and image of the team must perfectly match that of the sponsor for it to be effective. This perhaps explains why Red Bull and Virgin, along with Kingfisher (Force India), Mercedes, Air Asia (Lotus) and Renault have all decided that it was best to own their own teams rather than support others in the new era of F1.

The new resource restriction agreement drawn up by the teams for this season has allowed Virgin Racing to do a respectable job with a budget of just $40 million. This was the purpose of the agreement, to allow smaller teams to operate competitively on smaller budgets. If it had not been for this agreement, it is likely that Virgin and other sponsors like Air Asia would have turned their back on the sport. Instead, Virgin Racing marketing director Jim Wright believes that F1 can actually be a profitable business venture for the company, as he thinks the resource restriction and increased prize money distribution will allow this to be possible. If this is true, this will make the sport the most profitable sponsorship opportunity around and make it a far more attractive proposition for a greater number of companies.

Money Supermarket is the latest company to try and utilise an association with F1, with their latest car insurance campaign starring Nigel Mansell (and a cool looking Moneysupermarket sponsored slot car). It is likely that many more firms around the car insurance world will see the new, more cost-effective F1 as an attractive proposition. However, it is likely that the more affluent companies will actually become fully fledged F1 sponsors, as companies now realise that the sponsorship market is crowded and recognise the need for team ownership to better reflect their brand image. One of the companies recently mentioned is Porsche, who are investigating the possibility of entering F1 in time for the new environmental regulations due to be implemented for 2013. Surely Aston Martin would also see the benefit of entering the more cost-effective formula. We could therefore see a very different line up of teams in time for the 2013 season and perhaps many new iconic liveries which will be remembered throughout the ages. Who would love to see a Gulf Aston Martin car on the grid in 2013?

(Mark Martin)

So in taking a skim over the history of Lotus liveries (a less detailed one than I’ll be doing for the likes of Jordan and Benetton, for whom I’ll cover each individual season – Lotus competed for 38 years, after all!), I’ll also be speculating over whether any of the classic colour schemes could feasibly make a  reappearance  in 2010 – or will we see something new entirely?

1958-1968 – British Racing Green

When Lotus started racing – in case you didn’t know – Grand Prix cars were painted in national colour schemes – and, as a British team, they hence raced in predominantly green cars, in that distinctive and classic “British Racing Green” shade. Even in those days, however, the team gave the colour scheme a distinctive look of their own, by adding a thick yellow stripe (presumably drawn from the marque’s yellow-and-green logo) that ran from the nose along the centre of the car. This gave the team a visual identity that it would carry through its entire existence – as evidenced by the fact that, when there wasn’t a tobacco company painting the car their own colour, the team would always revert back to some combination of these colours. Rightly, too, as it’s an absolute classic – although it’s also arguable as to whether it’s now a quite dated look.

Chances of seeing it on the grid in 2010? … and there’s the rub. Assuming the new Lotus team don’t sign a sponsorship deal that dictates their livery (in which case, all the speculation in this article is invalidated!), then a green car with yellow trim would seem the obvious design to go for. But how would it look on a 2010-spec car? Modern F1 cars can look great in green, but not since the early ’90s Benetton have we seen yellow and green together (and in that case, besides, the yellow of Camel was the dominant colour). Still, though, if they want to put “Lotus” in people’s minds, then it really is the only way to go: 8/10.

1968-1971 – Gold Leaf

It may not seem like that much to look at now, but the Gold Leaf Lotus is of course one of the most famous and significant liveries in F1 history – being the first ever sponsored Grand Prix car. As such, it employed a colour scheme never before seen on an F1 grid – predominantly red (but a more orangey shade of red than the Italian racing colours of the time) with a white undersection split by gold that ran down to a wider section on the nose. As such a trailblazer, it can’t really be judged by modern livery standards (particularly with regards to the implementation of sponsor logos, which are essentially just slapped-on stickers), but it’s not a bad-looking car at all, and pleasingly there’s an attempt to lay out the colours along the lines of the car, a crucial factor in good livery design.

Chances for 2010? Not high – despite being such an integral part of F1 history, red and gold aren’t associated with the Lotus “brand” at all, and it’s never a wise thing (unless you’ve got the brass neck of Frank Williams in the ’90s) to stick another red car on the grid alongside Ferrari anyway: 3/10

1970 – World Wide Racing

Sandwiched in among the last couple of years of the Gold Leaf era was this intriguing effort – I’m not sure the reasoning behind it, but this predominantly gold car, while slightly foreshadowing the JPS car in combining black as well, is quite unlike any other Lotus livery. It adorned the Lotus 56B, an unsuccessful attempt at replacing the famous Lotus 72, and only competed in three Grands Prix – hence, presumably, why it’s so hard to find out the story behind its use…

Chances for 2010? I suppose that gold has as much chance as any as being an arbitrary colour choice that the team might go with if they don’t decide to call back a famous era of Lotus history – but if they do, I highly doubt it would be in any sort of tribute to this car: 2/10.

1972-1978 – John Player Special

Nope, don’t remember this one…

… well of course it’s the famous John Player Special livery. I was arguably a little unfair on this livery in only placing it at #10 in my all-time countdown – I suppose personal preference overrode its historical significance as possibly the most memorable (and fondly-remembered) livery in F1 history – not to mention the fact that I’ve never actually seen it “in action”, so perhaps I’d have placed it higher had I seen how it looks in motion rather than in still photographs. Still, what can’t be denied is that having already raced in a classic colour scheme in green and yellow, and then had the first sponsor-based livery, Lotus led the charge again by coming up with an entirely distinctive car that, moreso than arguably any other sponsor-based livery (I mean, the Marlboro McLaren is all well and good, but try arguing its uniqueness to an IndyCar fan), will be forever indelibly associated with a single team.

Chances for 2010? Well, it won’t be with JPS, obviously, due to the tobacco ban (and if that brand was ever going to return to the sport, you’d have expected it in the BAR days). But you never know – it would certainly be a way of fostering a bit of public affection for the team to paint the cars black and gold, so long as they could find a main sponsor who either already used, or didn’t mind being displayed in, the colours: 6/10.

1979-1980 – Various

With the end of the JPS deal (the first time, at least), Lotus returned to green for the first time in over a decade – but in 1979 it was a much more “modern” look and feel, with this metallic shade of green adorning the car alongside new sponsor Martini. Although Martini had earlier given us a much more classic livery on the Brabham (including the 1977 entry in my Top 25), their scheme still works surprisingly well (better than you suspect it should) alongside the chosen green. That said, it strikes me as a very American-looking car.

As does the next design, come to that, with tobacco company Essex – whose name had also adorned the side of the Martini car – taking over the whole car in 1980 for this blue design, the only time the colour has ever been used (aside from in sponsor’s lettering) on a Lotus. It’s flashy, but fairly basic for that, and I certainly don’t think it goes down as a classic.

Chances for 2010? Martini’s lines look great on an F1 car, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see them adorn one again in the future – but I highly doubt it would be a Lotus, and certainly not a green one: 2/10. As for Essex, obviously that specific sponsor won’t join the team – but while I’d never usually expect a Lotus team to paint their cars a shiny blue, the fact that they’re owned by Proton means that as a predominant colour, it can’t be ruled out: the Proton logo sits on a blue background, echoing the canton of the Malaysian flag with its yellow crescent and star set on blue. So if we’re just taking the basic idea of a blue car, I’d give this: 5/10.

1981-1986 – John Player Special

In what might be one of the few examples of this ever happening in F1, having moved away from a famous livery for a brief time, Lotus returned to it in 1981 when JPS came back onboard as title sponsors. Early ’80s cars were a very different proposition aesthetically, compared to the last time the black and gold had adorned the Lotus, and it’s true that some of the designs of this era weren’t among the best. But on the other hand, it’s a classy enough livery that it still looked iconic and distinctive – and one of the most memorable F1 visuals of a generation is of the bright yellow helmet of Senna poking out of the car in the rain at Estoril, as he won his first grand prix in 1985.

1987-1990 – Camel

From one cigarette company to another, although – much as when West would later replace Marlboro on the ’98 McLaren – the new sponsor didn’t do a bad job of replacing a classic and iconic livery with a fairly memorable design of its own. It’s plain and simple, sure – but there’s something appealing about cars that take a two-colour scheme and ensure that all their sponsors (although in this instance, they only really had to worry about changing the elf and Honda logos) stick to it. Camel would come to dominate F1 sponsorship in the late ’80s/early ’90s (sponsoring, for a time, Benetton and Williams simultaneously), but this was easily their standout effort – and for me, it’s just as memorable a “Senna car” as the JPS.

Chances of seeing it in 2010? I’m going to stick my neck out here, and say there’s almost as much chance of the 2010 Lotus being yellow as there is it being green. Why do I reckon this? I’m not sure – perhaps it’s based on personal fondness for this livery, or the fact that since Jordan departed the sport has been crying out for a yellow car again. But despite having famously often had green cars, the Lotus logo is set against a large yellow background – and I just have a feeling that its current owners, Proton, will seek to make use of it across the car in an economic climate that’s unlikely to see them enter the sport with another major brand as title sponsor. Plus of course, there’s the fact that Proton’s own colours are yellow and… blue. So: 7/10.

1991 – Team Lotus

With Camel having departed, and no clear replacement title sponsor in sight, Lotus were back in the position of having to draw upon their own company identity for a livery. And so, for the first time in over a decade, green was back – only this time, split about 50/50 across the car with simple white, separated by yellow/gold trim. It’s a lovely livery, this, I think – spoiled only slightly by some inconsistent sponsor colouring (it’s quite bizarre that a BP logo in a lighter shade of green is allowed to sit on the darker green like that), it’s simple and classic without being too flashy. Sadly, with a new title sponsor around the corner, this new visual identity would only last for a single season…

Chances for 2010? If the new team don’t want just to go with green and yellow,then white would seem the obvious colour to put into the mix – especially as a frustrating habit for F1 teams in recent years has been to paint their cars predominantly white, leading to plenty of indistinguishability. A variant of this design, or something like it, certainly wouldn’t therefore be out of the question: 7/10.

1992-1993 – Castrol

As I’ve already discussed, I’m quite fond of the 1992 Lotus, and it made it to number 15 in my all-time favourites list. Simply put, it shows how to put the classic green and yellow onto a modern car and make it work – largely by combining with a very dark grey (note that it’s not quite black) that takes care of all the “peripheral” car parts (wings etc.) in an effective and tidy manner. The large Castrol logo across the engine cover looks good, and it’s only a shame – as I said when writing up the Top 25 entry – that there’s a surfeit of sponsor logos, and that some of them are in boxes that cut into the livery’s dividing lines.

Still, it’s tidier than the ’93 car, which added red and white into the mix and removed the yellow almost entirely. In fact, I think keeping in the yellow actually lets this car down, as it doesn’t go hugely well with the red – a shame, as I think red, white and green is an underused and potentially very good set of colours for an F1 car. This suffers again from an overload of sponsors, though – and is it Hitachi that are controlling the colour scheme now, or still Castrol?

Chances for 2010? As discussed above, a predominantly green and yellow livery is probably the most likely way for Lotus to go next year – so something like the 1992 car could be seen: 8/10. As for the ’93 effort, though, only a major sponsor with a desire to bring red to the car would surely lead to that combination of colours, so it doesn’t seem hugely likely: 4/10.

1994 – Team Lotus

For Lotus’ last season in F1 (to date), Castrol exited stage left, and the team were again left without a major sponsor to shape the colour scheme. Hence, it was back to the previously established white and green identity – although this time it included an increased amount of yellow, and also some grey flourishes in quite a distinctive pattern draped across the car. This element of the design actually works really well, but sadly – as with so many cars of the time – the number of different (and differently-coloured) sponsor logos jostling for space on the car break up the flowing lines, and I’ve never been convinced by yellow rear wing endplates when the wing itself is darker. Nevertheless, on the whole it’s a good combination of colours.

Chances for 2010? If the team are planning to plaster the Lotus brand across the car, then we could well see something this as an alternative to simple green and/or yellow. As mentioned above, white is a colour that could set off the “classic” pair, and if they opt for something other than simple lines, it could come out looking like the ’94 car – certainly, not exactly like it, but the overall weighting of colours and “racecar” feel of the livery could be repeated: 6/10.

So that’s the Lotus livery history – an exciting and varied one, despite the team arguably having one of the strongest corporate identites of any team courtesy of its classic green and yellow logo. Sadly, while I’m sure the new team will come up with something decent, it seems unlikely that any future car from “Lotus F1” will enter the annals of design history in the same way that so many “Team Lotus”es did – but we can but hope.

Coming up next in Livery Histories : Jordan. And if you like your speculation, then as the 2010 season draws nearer I’ll start to have a look at what colour schemes I reckon the assorted new and existing F1 teams might stick on their cars…

The first entry in the top ten isn’t what I’d call one of my absolute personal favourites – but it’s impossible to have the list without it, as it’s arguably the first truly recognisable sponsor-based livery, and endures to this day as one of the most famous of all time. After having been the first team to bring sponsorship into F1 with Gold Leaf in 1968, Lotus began in 1972 an association that would last until 1986, and make up some of the most memorable imagery of the ‘70s era – the famed black and gold somehow making the brutish, hulking cars of the time look smooth and classy (although, that said, the wedge-shaped Lotus 72 was the exception, a lovely car in and of itself). I’ve gone for the original design here, as I think it’s the one that was the best-suited to the lines of the car, and which also had the most original impact. The gold plate for the race numbers, with the number laid on in black, looks better than the gold-on-black numbering of some of the later cars; and I’m not particularly keen on the introduction of the Union flag from 1976 onwards, nor the muted gold of the 1980s versions. It’s a livery that remains among the most popular at classic car festivals, and there are frequent calls for it to be brought back in some form – although I have to say, I think it’s a design that’s very much of its time, and any attempt to resurrect it would probably be unnecessary nostalgia-dwelling. Nevertheless, its importance in the history of sponsor/team identities simply can’t be overstated.

The famous Lotus team’s dying years in the early ‘90s were never particularly happy ones, and after two famous liveries in the ‘70s and ‘80s – John Player Special black followed by Camel yellow – bounced around a different style each year for their final few seasons. This green, yellow and black design from 1992, however, was a particularly smart little effort – more colourful than the green and white of ’91, and far tidier than the 1993 car (which was more dominated by Castrol’s green, white and red colour scheme). It’s a shame that the sponsor decals consist largely of boxes that cut into the lines of the livery (rather than being integrated into it), though – it’s certainly not something you’d see nowadays, and without them the car would look even better.