218 replies to this topic

[FirstnameLastname]

4 livery launches now, and it seems Black (or naked carbon fiber) is the order of the day.

I take it there’s no way to manufacture the carbon in alternative colours?

I get it’s a weight saving thing… would it be overkill to mandate that the car must be painted/wrapped on all visable surfaces?

Edited by FirstnameLastname, 08 February 2024 - 21:36.

[JimmyClark]

4 livery launches now, and it seems Black (or naked carbon fibre) is the order of the day.

I take it there’s no way to manufacture the carbon in alternative colours?

I get it’s a weight saving thing… would it be overkill to mandate that the car must be painted/wrapped on all visable surfaces?

 

5*

 

Naked carbon looks horrible in the day. it was interesting when one team did it, but now it's everyone, it is just an eyesore. 

 

I'm surprised sponsors are happy about it to be honest.

 

There is precedent for regs being brought in to help sponsors - e.g. back in 2004 when engine covers were getting ever smaller, the FIA mandated the size of the engine cover so sponsor space wasn't lost. So they could do similar here, but it would be a very meddling rule. Albeit it would help aesthetics, for sure. I can't imagine it's great for people with poor eyesight to follow most of these cars, so that's another justification I guess. 

[KWSN - DSM]

Weight limitations dictate cars battling to meet lowest weight, it is free not to paint, exposed carbon the result of the rules - And the teams looking for every single little way to make their cars faster - I personally question that it actually mean anything speed/time wise, but I am not running multimillion F1 teams, who presumably know better.

 

The Sales, marketing and PR departments must dislike the blackness even more than us the fans - All the wasted real estate they can charge exorbitant sums for renting out just lying there as virgin untouched territory. 

[pdac]

I wouldn't mind it if every car was completely naked carbon fibre, with no logos, names or any other decals, except for a couple of places where car number was displayed in a clear and visible manner.

[SophieB]

I for one crave colour!

 

Stop stinting with the paint…

[pdac]

I for one crave colour!

 

Stop stinting with the paint…

 

With black cars, the colours of the drivers helmets would stand out more.

[Spillage]

I honestly think the FIA should ban them running paint-free. It makes the whole grid look the same.

[Bendo]

Make stupid rules get stupid cars.

[JHSingo]

Yeah, something needs doing about this ASAP now.

 

I still remember a few years ago when there was that massive brouhaha about it being hard to identify drivers because they were changing their helmet design so often. Well, this is probably even worse. How the heck are you supposed to tell who is who when you're at the track, in a grand stand, and over half the grid has a "livery" (I use that word loosely) that is predominantly bare carbon? 

 

And, as another point, I don't get the modern obsession with the colour black anyway. It has been so overdone in motorsport in the last few years. Personally, I think Mercedes looks far nice in silver than black, but now there's Toyota using black in WEC and WRC, BMW used black in the BTCC a couple of seasons back, and there's probably multiple other examples too. 

 

Let's have bright, vibrant, unique liveries that stand out rather than dull, drab, unoriginal ones that just blend in. 

[JvsKVB77]

would it be overkill to mandate that the car must be painted/wrapped on all visable surfaces?

No. It is shame when we see painted Hypercar and ugly F1 car from same team at one stage. Or, for example, McLaren deffinatly would use livery in style of Rossi car in Indycar, but need to change white on not painted color. 

Edited by JvsKVB77, 07 February 2024 - 14:46.

[JvsKVB77]

Black Paint Matters! Stop ignore it) 

[Anja]

With black cars, the colours of the drivers helmets would stand out more.

 

You can barely see them from behind the halo anyway. And it's not like the colours of the helmets are even recognizable these days. 

Edited by Anja, 07 February 2024 - 14:46.

[KWSN - DSM]

I for one crave colour!

 

Stop stinting with the paint…

 

[TomNokoe]

What surprises me is that it's getting worse. I thought last season we had settled in a good-but-not-great middle ground, but seemingly not.

Agreed something needs to be done, but equally the weight of the cars needs to go down, not up, even if it's only a couple of kilos.

[Jops14]

It looks awful

[Frankbullitt]

We may get used to it, once it is about weight savings they will all be doing it.

 

Unless there is some rule where a certain % of the car has to be covered, it will be like this forever.

[AncientLurker]

I for one crave colour!

 

Stop stinting with the paint…

Would love to have a grid of colourful distinctly painted cars as well.

 

This season is already taking the piss just four car launches in. My guess is an FIA mandate on what areas must be painted/wrapped to come into effect by race 4 of the season (to give teams time to repaint). Maybe we need a poll with options from race one to never?

[Ruusperi]

How I miss the times when cars were easy to tell apart and they all had a clear identity.

[JHSingo]

How I miss the times when cars were easy to tell apart and they all had a clear identity.

 

Don't even have to go that far back...this was 2019. And everyone was clearly identifiable at a glance. 

 

[ANF]

Four livery launches already?! We need pictures and obviously a stipulated minimum weight of paint.

[JimmyClark]

Renauilt in 2019 had a great livery - from the front it did look very much like a yellow car, but from the side it was black (and proper painted black). Then again, if all teams did that it wouldn't be so appealing. 

[Burai]

At least the teams, so far, seem to have bright flashes of unique colour on the cars. Nobody will be mistaking the Sauber green for McLaren orange or Alpine pink.

 

For me, the worst time for liveries was around 10 years ago. A horrible sea of grey:

 

[messy]

Anyone remember playing Super Formula races in Gran Turismo? Every single car piling into T1 at Suzuka in identical bare black carbon fibre. Never thought it eould actually happen in real life.

The Alpine is easily the worst offender yet in my book. It's awful to look at.

[Boing 2]

What are the 5 liveries? I've only seen Haas Williams Sauber and Alpine so far?

Edited by Boing 2, 07 February 2024 - 15:13.

[KWSN - DSM]

Don't even have to go that far back...this was 2019. And everyone was clearly identifiable at a glance. 

 

 

Rich Energy sighting!!1

[Thursday]

I take it there’s no way to manufacture the carbon in alternative colours?

 

I may be misremembering but I think the Brabhams of the early '80's impregnated the carbon with colour rather than painting. It would still be heavier than carbon without colour though.

 

We may get used to it, once it is about weight savings they will all be doing it.

 

Unless there is some rule where a certain % of the car has to be covered, it will be like this forever.

 

Then the teams would paint the bottom of the floor. I know I would.

[absinthedude]

I've not seen any 2024 liveries but it strikes me as hardly the biggest problem facing F1 these days. 

 

However it may be easier to solve than the others. Mandate that all cars are painted/decalled. Then nobody is at a weight disadvantage. 

[JvsKVB77]

What are the 5 liveries? I've only seen Haas Williams Sauber and Alpine so far?

McLaren too.

[grandmastashi]

Unless the FIA steps in and does something, it's just going to carry on and we'll have 20 cars lining up in Bahrain barely distinguishable from each other. Journalists need to ask, are your sponsors happy they'll be easy to spot against 18 other black cars?

 

It'll only be when they can't be easily picked out on TV against each other that any questions will get asked internally. 

 

Trust F1 to sleepwalk itself into an easily solveable situation like this. 

[Frood]

Watch F1 make paint mandatory, and then all the teams go full WEC and everyone paints their car in red, black and white of varying degrees so you still can't tell the difference

[Boing 2]

McLaren too.

I totally forgot about that..

[IrvTheSwerve]

Mandate all surfaces except the floor to be painted, job done. Paint them black if you want. Infact, knowing the petty nature of F1, the teams would bring out the same liveries with the carbon bits painted black…just to make a point.

[Calum]

F1 gets into so many silly muddles.

A whole grid of this is going to be annoying.

[KWSN - DSM]

Why in the world would or should liveries ever be something FIA would be regulating?

[grandmastashi]

F1 gets into so many silly muddles.

A whole grid of this is going to be annoying.

 

Reminds me of the 2014 noses and 2016's elimination qualifying.

[Burai]

I don't see how mandating that the cars be painted will solve anything. They'll all converge on whatever the lightest composition and colour is and we'll have 20 identical painted cars rather than 20 identical bare cars.

[JimmyClark]

Mandate all surfaces except the floor to be painted, job done. Paint them black if you want. Infact, knowing the petty nature of F1, the teams would bring out the same liveries with the carbon bits painted black…just to make a point.

 

Doubt it, if it wasn't the lighest paint colour. 

 

(that's why the Jags weren't 'proper' BRG, as the paint for that was heavier than the one they eventually settled for, which also had the advantage of looking greener on telly). 

 

That's also why we've had the trend towards matte paint too, as its a bit lighter than gloss. 

 

Out of interest, I looked to see if coloured carbon fibre was possible, adn it seems it might be... https://www.composit...ed-carbon-fiber

Edited by JimmyClark, 07 February 2024 - 15:50.

[P123]

4 livery launches now, and it seems Black (or naked carbon fibre) is the order of the day.

I take it there’s no way to manufacture the carbon in alternative colours?

I get it’s a weight saving thing… would it be overkill to mandate that the car must be painted/wrapped on all visable surfaces?

 

One big heap of added blandness.  Perhaps Andretti showed them a livery mock-up and there was no black?

[messy]

Don't even have to go that far back...this was 2019. And everyone was clearly identifiable at a glance.

I don't think you even need to go back that far - 2022 was (initially) a sea of colour, with particularly nice looking Aston/Williams/Sauber/McLaren designs, Merc reverting to light grey...I think the bare carbon fibre started creeping onto the cars soon after this, though.

Edited by messy, 07 February 2024 - 16:09.

[Ali623]

Might as well call this the carbon era. Mercedes will be fully black/carbon again no doubt, even Ferrari last year were exposing what parts of their car they could get away with.

 

Williams are the only team so far you could say have acceptably given their car a livery.

 

[Nathan]

They may be 80% black, but they all contrast.  Sauber has bright green, Alpine blue and pink, Williams blue, McLaren orange, Ferrari red, it's not like they still can't be differentiated.

[Laster]

If Mclaren changed the black to white,
Alpine change the black to Blue,
Sauber changed the black to green,
Williams changed the black to white
And Haas dumped their entire idea of a livery in a bin. The cars might start to look good.

[Ali623]

To be honest, my main issue isn't the fact you can/can't differentiate the cars, but rather that the exposed carbon looks terrible in the light. Glossy (or even matte) black would be fine, it looks good, but carbon looks more grey and washed-out in light and gives the car a very unfinished look in my opinion.

 

 

EDIT: Good example here on last year's Mercedes. Top of the engine cover is glossy black, the sidepods are exposed carbon.

 

Edited by Ali623, 07 February 2024 - 17:00.

[Anja]

The only somewhat realistic solution I see is to exclude the paint/wrap from the weight limit, but that creates an issue with the random weight checks during the weekend - I don't know how it works with driver/fuel on board. 

Edited by Anja, 07 February 2024 - 17:12.

[eibyyz]

Rich Energy sighting!!1

 

And so far up the grid, too!  

[cbo]

They still need a big, fat, white oval with black car numbers on them. One on each side and one on the front.

Or the oval in a unique color for each team and the numbers in a contrasting
color.

[pdac]

 

I see you've been using my laser printer.

[pdac]

Just have 10 base colour schemes and each team is assigned that particular scheme based on their WCC order of the previous season. Sponsors will just have to work around that (or maybe teams can switch amongst themselves once the allocations are made)

Edited by pdac, 07 February 2024 - 17:19.

[JimmyClark]

Imagine if the marketing guys that came up with the 2007 Honda Earth Dreams livery pitched it now. The technical design team would proabably have them shot. (it was a massive sticker over the whole car, so the heaviest livery job of the modern era). 

 

Though even if that car had been naked, it would still have been dog slow. 

[Sterzo]

Bring back compulsory national colours. Then we could argue about which nationality each team is.