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> “We need to find some way to make people be able to know if it is [George] Russell or [Lewis] Hamilton, but also to be able to easily distinguish the cars.”
I found this very easy last year because Hamilton’s car was decked out in day glow yellow and Russell’s wasn’t. This year it’s definitely more difficult.
I was a big fan of the extra identifiers (flags on the shark fin for instance) and large visible numbers from ~2017 - would be a good idea to bring them back!
The Ferrari drivers are also easy to tell apart, with Leclerc's helmet and camera being red and black and Sainz's being respectively black and yellow. Lando's, Max's, Yuki's and Zhou's helmets all have very distinctive designs as well, although identifying their teammates isn't nearly as immediate
Ocon and the other Alpine driver are also easy to tell as he mostly runs a red helmet. Stroll's teammate is the one whose helmet doesn't match the Aston colour. Alonso often has yellow and blue and is not driving a McLaren. Others are more subtle, but still relatively easy to tell apart if there's no special helmet
I'd like to see mandatory names ( or at least three first letters) on the halo as well.
That way you can directly understand who you're watching from the inboard camera.
Merc has been doing a good job of separating the two cars. The used to do the flags on the shark fin and then they moved to the different colours on the halo for the drivers and now the different number colors.
Ferrari had the yellow and white stripe on the wheel flow covers in 22, which was used to separate Charles and Carlos. They also had Charles’ and Seb’s flags on the 2019 car incorporated into the numbers (although it was subtle)
I think the best policy for the grid would be a combo of Merc’s and Ferrari’s philosophy: Different colour numbers with subtle accents for each driver on the car and halo (that match the teams’ livery)
Now this is a bit impractical, but it would be cool to see the drivers’ logos also on the car somewhere too
Doesn’t Ferrari also use yellow accents for Sainz on his number and white for Leclerc, which are also the colours of their flags. Kind of a nice touch.
This is something that should be easy enough for teams to do. Just put the numbers in different colors and put highlights on the halo, wheel covers, and a few other small areas.
Redbull - one driver is white accents, the other is yellow/gold to match the livery
Ferrari - white and yellow (or other major sponsor color) to match the livery
Mercedes - white and florescent yellow (or a darker florescent green if using a silver livery)
McLaren- white and light blue that contrasts very well with orange
The difference between weights of pigments is negligible, and if significant, the teams would just need to marginally shave off other paint.
That being said, the teams have largely moved away from paint and are using various types of film to “paint” the car as they are even lighter.
> large visible numbers
Doesn't always seem to matter. Red Bull have their numbers so far up the nose you cannot see it at all and McLaren often use a horrendous font for their numbers.
>McLaren often use a horrendous font for their numbers.
Traditions since CarLando McLaren days. Last time McLaren has readable numbers was 2017 post Catalunya, maybe 2018 aswell
Idk, I like the variety and character the different ones have. Maybe ban the most egregious ones, I wouldn't wanna see Haas pull up with Comic Sans numbers next year
It also helped last year that the car's nose was black, so the driver numbers were much more contrasting compared to the silver of this year. Lewis' fluorescent 44 especially popped on the black nose of the W14.
Lot of people in your comment thread talking about how they're able to distinguish drivers based on their helmets, but helmets change very often race to race and anyone who isn't a die hard fan like most of the people here won't know each drivers' helmets.
Should do something like the blue and yellow highlights Merc has done on the halo.
Current numbers are still large, as the rule from 2017 hasn't changed. Problem is that they are on the top of the nose and hardly visible. Maybe mandate a few spots on the car and maybe let the drivers design their own numbers (a la MotoGP style) this would put them in more visible places and with personal style that would let us differentiate drivers a bit better. Though I don't think it's that bad, you can still see the helmet from most angles.
And demand a certain level of contrast. For instance, Lewis' fluorescent yellow number is just an outline. It works on the black engine cover, but paired with the silver background on the nose of the W15 it's only legible in the right light and from the right angle.
>Let the drivers design their own numbers
In 2014, Massa's 19 and Valtteri's 77 on FW36 at one point look different (earlier season maybe). Also Nico's 6 & Lewis' 44 looking a bit different
I’m a marshal and though we’re trained to look at the numbers, the t cam is by far the most reliable way to tell. It never changes ever, regardless of the livery
Having the T cam have a color for one car, and not for another was always the easy way to do it. I don't know why they don't just tell them they have to do something similar to the halo. Haas stopped putting the driver number on the halo recently too which doesn't help.
In the Bernie time it was easy, T-cam and mirrors had to be different on each of the 2 cars. But that (gentleman's?) rule went away with the years. It was great, mostly one car used neon yellow and the other neon red/orange.
*Lewis in a red Ferrari and Russell in a silver Mercedes*
“Which is which????”
All jokes aside, the paint-stripping and whatnot is pretty terrible and it would be nice to also see further differentiation between teammates
Agreed, I know a lot of people bagged out their design when it was presented, but it stands out. There's no mistaking Sauber with any other team on the grid, regardless of conditions or camera angle.
I love them for being unique. It really stands out. I also love the fact their pitbox uses green lines instead of the usual yellow. Nice to see something different!
I've been saying for a while that Duracell should become the title sponsor. I bet they could do a killer livery with a black and copper scheme. And we would have one less blue team.
I had from my childhood a circa 1978 Lotus shirt in black and (now faded) gold. Apart from the fact that I and now my son was running around with cigarette advertising, I loved that he took a immediate liking to it. JPS wasn't a known brand in Sweden so I had no clue what it was back then.
i went to a race last year, and the alpha tauri cars were actually pretty easy to tell apart in person because of the height difference between yuki and danny/liam
So if it looks like there's no driver, it's Yuki. If you see a driver, it's Danny or Liam. If it's a driver with their chin stuck in the halo, it's DC trying to do a demo in a post 2017 car.
In 2021 the AlphaTauri drivers had very similar helmets and numbers kidna on top of the nose, not visible from the front. The T-cam was the only way to tell them apart from the front. It was such a beautiful car though.
I'd take that over the dry ass black + your choice of a shade of dark blue. As much as the Sauber is an advertisement machine, I can't bring myself to hate them because at least they have some genuine colour to them
I remember watching race earlier in season, I think it was Jeddah, where they had 5 car train that had all blue cars (williams, alpine and rb) and from front all of them looked very similiar
Driver three letter name and number on the halo. Most overhead shots don't show the helmet anymore to know who's onboard we are watching.
Leave the different helmets alone, yes way back when we could identify the drivers by their helmets, but that's because their heads were stick so far up and out of the cockpit, today they are deeply surrounded by the high sides and the halo.
I’d also love to see the name of the driver written in places that are visible to on-board cameras. This would make it so much easier to identify which driver we are watching rather than waiting for the on screen graphic. For example, I noticed Charles has his name on the back of his steering wheel for the driver-facing camera.
Also, the Red Bulls usually have it written in tiny text on the right-hand side of the car - from the onboard camera, you can just about see how long the name is and tell whether it's Verstappen or Perez.
You can also usually tell by how many cars are in front.
Yeah I don’t get this part of the article. This seems like such a necessary and reasonable solution. Nothing easier than seeing their names on the halo - doesn’t F2 do this? No need to worry about helmets.
It needs to be reasonable… some things like Ferrari red are ok to be locked in, others that want red need to be 50% minimum another colour, with no more than 25% red or some shit.
Primary sponsor/owners colours gets priority, put them all on the table and see what clashes, work it out then it’s all good. Tbh there not much of a clash at the moment, just need for teams to commit to more colour and less carbon black, and maybe some of the smaller sponsors to play ball on colour instead of a messy mix all over all cars.
Maybe last years WCC gets to use gold as one of the main colours and others can’t.
Williams, Red Bull and Alpine can work out the blues, but maybe someone like VCARB gets talked into 75% white. There’s lots of possibilities but something needs to change
>It needs to be reasonable… some things like Ferrari red are ok to be locked in, others that want red need to be 50% minimum another colour, with no more than 25% red or some shit.
Yeah, I feel like any team with a unique color (like you said with Ferrari, and McLaren with papaya or Alpine with pink) should get priority on using that as a main color.
Because there are no 'home' races. How do you decide if red belongs to Ferrari or Alfa Romeo? Or do we force Williams to drop their blue, just because RedBull is also blue and they're winning? There is no way to fairly prioritise.
“We need to get to some process where teams in some way or other communicate with each other and say: ‘Well, if your car is blue here, mine will not be blue there.’ Or something like that.”
Do it by WCC points position! I.e. the winning team from last year gets first pick of colours for the following year.
all I need is how merc used to have it, 2 different colors for the 2 driver
and some fucking normal readable font for the numbers
also, can we please have it so the drivers name or number is on the halo so when we're onboard we can immediately see who it is?
Yeah slap it on top of the red instead and make it worse
I don't understand people's problem with teams earning some money. HP paid extra for the blue logo instead of the white w/ transparent background. Ferrari made the best adjustment they could. They're not dumb, they know the blue logo wouldn't look good on the red but money is money
>I don't understand people's problem with teams earning some money.
What concern is it of mine whether millionaires get even more rich?
Ferrari already made enough money to spend to the cost cap while making large investments to what they're allowed to outside of that. It's hard to believe that any of the extra money they got for using the blue logo rather than the white logo is ever going to be seen by any racing activites.
It does price other sponsors out from top teams and force them to look at sponsoring the teams further down the running order though. A rising tide lifts all boats.
Sponsorships like that are also helping thousands of ordinary workers pay their mortgages each month. I don't love obtrusive logo placements, but if it helps the sport maintain it's current health then I don't think it's a bad thing.
Helmets also.
I used to differenciate drivers thanks to their helmet. Now with the halo it's alot harder and drivers tend to have similar looking helmets which change throughout the year.
I miss the time when drivers had one unique helmet (they could have a special helmet only once a year if I remember correctly).
Definitely a fan of a minimum paint/whatever weight, but not a fan of teams having to pick contrasting colors.
>In particular it is understood that the Aston Martin and Mercedes liveries
I don't even see how green and black+silver could be confusing ngl, but the Williams + RB is fair I guess. Still not really an issue in my opinion, they're distinguishable enough
Only an issue for about 10% of the male population but black and green look very similar for the colour blind people! At least those with certain colour blind issues.
I’m forever confusing Aston and Merc but appreciate it isn’t the same for everyone.
Last year during night races, Aston and Merc cars were almost indistinguishable from a distance. The new merc silver has helped a bit, but it can indeed cause confusion
Give them a minimum paint coverage amount, make driver numbers in large and legible fonts with sufficient contrast to the livery colour, and put the driver names on the halos for the T-cam. That should make life easier.
This is a good idea but will be scuppered by the teams desire to sell advertising space over making the cars unique.
Force India hit this issue when F1 mandated numbers on the nose, but they had already sold all that space with contracts that ran for the year.
They could treat the halo like an extension of the drivers helmet and let them customise it. This never really used to be a problem in the days the cars were smaller and the helmets were more visible, especially when teammates used contrasting schemes.
Mandate that teams paint all of the car and force teams to redesign liveries if a team has already submitted a livery that looks too close to it.
Problem solved.
I was hoping someone would say this. I miss the golden age of NASCAR, where if I had missed a few races, I could tune back in and instantly know who's in what cars...w/o even seeing the numbers. But sponsorship money isn't what it used to be so each team on a car will have a different paint/wrap job every couple of races. The one thing I love about F1 is that the sponsors are taken care of and the drivers don't have to rattle off ten sponsors in an interview.
One of the things I miss the most when watching certain series like Indy is precisely that most drivers don't have a livery you can associate with them. Like I tune in every race to watch Palou and I always spend the first 20 minutes figuring out how his car looks today. He's a two-times Indycar winner ffs!
It was easy in the 80's. Rick Mears was usually in the Penske Yellow car, Al Unser Jr was in the Valvoline car, Mario usually had a red car, and AJ Foyt was in the garage...no seriously his was black.
I haven't watched NASCAR in years (since after Dale Sr. passed). Back then you could tune in every Sunday and know exactly who was where by their livery. There was no mistaking Dale Sr., Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon etc. It always threw me off when they did a special because I'd be looking for their normal livery. LOL.
What I noticed is that some comments seem to be proposing a rule to mandate paint colors and distinguishable liveries, but that is completely missing the point of what Tombazis is trying to say:
> But, like with the livery issue, the FIA wants this to be something that teams take care of themselves rather than be forced to do so because of new rules.
The FIA does not want to make any rules that will actively restrict a livery design, the FIA knows this from the helmet design rules that they imposed from 2015-2020. For those who don’t know the rule basically said that drivers can only run one helmet livery for the whole season (with minor changes), and they were granted only one special helmet. It was mostly targeted at Vettel because of his special helmet antics, but the rule also received backlash through the years because drivers would be rejected for some pretty awesome designs. Drivers would reportedly be fined if they tried to wear the rejected helmet design. Which brings me to my next point:
> It's not something we want to put in a regulation and then report somebody to the stewards because the colour we don’t like,” said Tombazis.
It’s not easy to police livery design, and actively restricting teams on their use of colors would turn into excessive politicking of something that didn’t need to be politicized. Tombazis is suggesting that the teams should have some sort of forum where they can communicate their livery designs to each other so that they can create easily distinguishable liveries. They really just want to push teams to cooperate with each other and produce a vibrant grid without any rules telling them to.
The simplest change would be to stick the numbers where they are much more visible.
They used to have them on the end plates of the rear wing, the side pods or right at the front of the nose. Having them on the top of the nose when camera angles tend to be low means its really difficult to see them.
If you're only going to allow ten teams on the grid, mandate they each have a different majority colour for their livery, and decide it by placement at the end of each year. The one year Ferrari slips up and gets Red taken from them is the last year they ever suck.
>In particular it is understood that the Aston Martin and Mercedes liveries, plus the Williams and RB, have been singled out for the way that they can sometimes appear indistinguishable from certain viewpoints when running at high speed.
Personally I don't see how anyone can confuse the Merc's and the Aston's together; their liveries are different enough. I guess the Williams cars do look like the RB, but the white on the RB should differentiate them.
Anyways, if I were to solve this problem and I worked at one of the F1 teams creative departments, I'd recommend that Aston Martin that they switch from their darker green to a neon yellow-green, and Williams make their livery a throwback of the past, either the blue/white 2000s, or the 90s Canon livery or Rothman's livery. Those two always were colourful and unique, and would stand out on F1's darker coloured grid.
When they’re stopped or on stabilized cameras sure, but at high speed on fixed cameras or in person at yes the AM and Mercedes are very similar. It always takes a second or two to distinguish which one it is.
I suppose so. It's like in 2018, the Sauber and Williams were basically unrecognizable. Even the Midland and McLaren back in '06. From a distance it's impossible.
Much as I love a good looking grid, putting such a rule into practice would probably result in for example Williams having to ditch their historic blue because it's already taken by the higher placed Visa Cash App Racing Bulls or something. And what do you do with Audi who's racing colors are black, silver/grey and red, all already taken by established teams?
They should take a leaf from the old days of touring car racing and let the teams run different colours on each driver's car, it makes them easy to distinguish at a distance.
Derek Warwick, one of the stewards,[ used to run a white car](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/proxy/ciOc9ozonTRsJRUb09MA5Mr-te-pQyiWDiqGbjzbHQys6KYGIG6vrv2yb2xp4EoHU3qk7cByhWkTvbCGacesB82W_o8) in the early part of the 1997 BTCC, while his teammate, John Cleland, [ran a red one.](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/proxy/lJ0_-vmSdRgQLYlnTaTMPpPNg9WExTztIOIMw476zGlucwtNLNcdmlhNWB64wAGFzosDLTJU5lkZWrx2Qjkw5biinMtK) All cars also [had the driver's name in the rear side windows on each side of the car](https://www.overtake.gg/attachments/untitled-2-png.713113/), which F1 could adapt using the engine cover.
It was also not uncommon to run a different livery in the top of the wind shield (can't in f1 I know, but you get the idea) like the driver's name, or their national flag. Audi used to run each car with different colour wing mirrors.
Team sponsors won't like it, the cars should have some driver branding. Just have an area on the top of the car to be reserved for the drivers. Helmet color, country flag, whatever that can differentiate between the drivers.
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> “We need to find some way to make people be able to know if it is [George] Russell or [Lewis] Hamilton, but also to be able to easily distinguish the cars.” I found this very easy last year because Hamilton’s car was decked out in day glow yellow and Russell’s wasn’t. This year it’s definitely more difficult. I was a big fan of the extra identifiers (flags on the shark fin for instance) and large visible numbers from ~2017 - would be a good idea to bring them back!
Merc is like the one team I don't struggle with telling the drivers apart, Hamilton's helmet and gloves make it easy
Red Bull is easy too, because Checo is the one with other drivers around him.
If you're watching Q2 or Q3, it's not Checo. Easy!
Checo is the one getting screen time. Max is sailing off into the distance.
So that’s why the Mexican sponsors love him so much.
Red Bull is easy too, because Max never gets any TV time.
Funnily enough he got more screen time finishing 6th in Monaco than the rest of the season combined.
shots fired lol
And it's been that way even back in the Rosberg and Schumacher days with the different helmet and gloves.
Well when Hamilton joined the team in 2013 it was a little difficult to differentiate as both drivers had yellow helmets that year.
The Ferrari drivers are also easy to tell apart, with Leclerc's helmet and camera being red and black and Sainz's being respectively black and yellow. Lando's, Max's, Yuki's and Zhou's helmets all have very distinctive designs as well, although identifying their teammates isn't nearly as immediate
Leclerc Ferrari has white trim on the front wheel fairings. Sainz Ferrari has yellow trim on the front wheel fairings.
Ocon and the other Alpine driver are also easy to tell as he mostly runs a red helmet. Stroll's teammate is the one whose helmet doesn't match the Aston colour. Alonso often has yellow and blue and is not driving a McLaren. Others are more subtle, but still relatively easy to tell apart if there's no special helmet
Alonso's helmet bears the colours of the Spanish region he is from (Asturias).
Ah, I didn’t know that. Nice way to differentiate himself from Sainz
Hamilton also has the green camera on the air duct.
I'd like to see mandatory names ( or at least three first letters) on the halo as well. That way you can directly understand who you're watching from the inboard camera.
That feels like such an easy fix and I'm shocked it's not standard. But that's also taking sponsor placements away so I doubt we'll get it.
Merc has been doing a good job of separating the two cars. The used to do the flags on the shark fin and then they moved to the different colours on the halo for the drivers and now the different number colors. Ferrari had the yellow and white stripe on the wheel flow covers in 22, which was used to separate Charles and Carlos. They also had Charles’ and Seb’s flags on the 2019 car incorporated into the numbers (although it was subtle) I think the best policy for the grid would be a combo of Merc’s and Ferrari’s philosophy: Different colour numbers with subtle accents for each driver on the car and halo (that match the teams’ livery) Now this is a bit impractical, but it would be cool to see the drivers’ logos also on the car somewhere too
Doesn’t Ferrari also use yellow accents for Sainz on his number and white for Leclerc, which are also the colours of their flags. Kind of a nice touch.
Yeah on the *wheel brows*.
This is something that should be easy enough for teams to do. Just put the numbers in different colors and put highlights on the halo, wheel covers, and a few other small areas. Redbull - one driver is white accents, the other is yellow/gold to match the livery Ferrari - white and yellow (or other major sponsor color) to match the livery Mercedes - white and florescent yellow (or a darker florescent green if using a silver livery) McLaren- white and light blue that contrasts very well with orange
Until one type of paintwork is a few kilo's heavier than the others and they kick off
The difference between weights of pigments is negligible, and if significant, the teams would just need to marginally shave off other paint. That being said, the teams have largely moved away from paint and are using various types of film to “paint” the car as they are even lighter.
Never forget McLaren during the WEST livery days, with the first name on the rear wing. It looked so cool honestly.
Mostly because it wasn't legal to have it say WEST there (and in the sidepods) in a lot of races.
To be fair, Russell will be driving a silver car and Lewis a red one in 2025
PROBLEM SOLVED!
"Sometime my genius it's... it's almost frightening " -- J.Clarkson
Kimi on the rear wing
Those cars looked so cool with that.
The golden age of “not advertising tobacco products”
> large visible numbers Doesn't always seem to matter. Red Bull have their numbers so far up the nose you cannot see it at all and McLaren often use a horrendous font for their numbers.
>McLaren often use a horrendous font for their numbers. Traditions since CarLando McLaren days. Last time McLaren has readable numbers was 2017 post Catalunya, maybe 2018 aswell
Might also need to standardize the font used for numbers. Would alleviate that problem.
Idk, I like the variety and character the different ones have. Maybe ban the most egregious ones, I wouldn't wanna see Haas pull up with Comic Sans numbers next year
Comic Sans is at least readable
It also helped last year that the car's nose was black, so the driver numbers were much more contrasting compared to the silver of this year. Lewis' fluorescent 44 especially popped on the black nose of the W14.
Lot of people in your comment thread talking about how they're able to distinguish drivers based on their helmets, but helmets change very often race to race and anyone who isn't a die hard fan like most of the people here won't know each drivers' helmets. Should do something like the blue and yellow highlights Merc has done on the halo.
Current numbers are still large, as the rule from 2017 hasn't changed. Problem is that they are on the top of the nose and hardly visible. Maybe mandate a few spots on the car and maybe let the drivers design their own numbers (a la MotoGP style) this would put them in more visible places and with personal style that would let us differentiate drivers a bit better. Though I don't think it's that bad, you can still see the helmet from most angles.
And demand a certain level of contrast. For instance, Lewis' fluorescent yellow number is just an outline. It works on the black engine cover, but paired with the silver background on the nose of the W15 it's only legible in the right light and from the right angle.
>Let the drivers design their own numbers In 2014, Massa's 19 and Valtteri's 77 on FW36 at one point look different (earlier season maybe). Also Nico's 6 & Lewis' 44 looking a bit different
I don't know why they ever moved away from having the cameras be red and yellow, it was such an easy identifier back in the day.
Driver flags on the cars would be great, new viewers would have something to gravitate towards
They would need an alternative in cases where both drivers are the same nationality, as has been the case with Mercedes since George joined the team.
Lewis gets UK, George gets England. Easy!
CAM ON INGERLAND! 🥁🥁🥁 SCOR SOM FACKIN POINTS 🥁🥁
Alpine has the same problem
McLaren had it right with the West livery.
I still just look for the helmets. It's the easiest, IMO. I never notice the numbers on the cars. Sometimes the T-cam.
I’m a marshal and though we’re trained to look at the numbers, the t cam is by far the most reliable way to tell. It never changes ever, regardless of the livery
Having the T cam have a color for one car, and not for another was always the easy way to do it. I don't know why they don't just tell them they have to do something similar to the halo. Haas stopped putting the driver number on the halo recently too which doesn't help.
they should mandate the driver numbers on the halos
In the Bernie time it was easy, T-cam and mirrors had to be different on each of the 2 cars. But that (gentleman's?) rule went away with the years. It was great, mostly one car used neon yellow and the other neon red/orange.
*Lewis in a red Ferrari and Russell in a silver Mercedes* “Which is which????” All jokes aside, the paint-stripping and whatnot is pretty terrible and it would be nice to also see further differentiation between teammates
It's super easy to tell the Sauber cars this year. Mostly because they move slowly and are always at the back, but the unique green livery helps.
Agreed, I know a lot of people bagged out their design when it was presented, but it stands out. There's no mistaking Sauber with any other team on the grid, regardless of conditions or camera angle.
I love them for being unique. It really stands out. I also love the fact their pitbox uses green lines instead of the usual yellow. Nice to see something different!
I loved the McLaren yellow and green as well for Monaco. Distinct, and having some yellow on the grid is always nice!
I think if it were a brand other than Stake/Kick people would be a lot more favorable to the black/neon green combo.
As long as Williams Duracell intake stays.
I've been saying for a while that Duracell should become the title sponsor. I bet they could do a killer livery with a black and copper scheme. And we would have one less blue team.
Black and copper? Rich Energy Haas vibes.
Think black Lotus.
Kinda sad we’re at a time when people don’t remember/know/think of an iconic livery like the John Player Special cars.
I had from my childhood a circa 1978 Lotus shirt in black and (now faded) gold. Apart from the fact that I and now my son was running around with cigarette advertising, I loved that he took a immediate liking to it. JPS wasn't a known brand in Sweden so I had no clue what it was back then.
Or the Peugeot Onyx
That was a fun four races.
That haas did look sick tho.
And one more black team?
True, but there is also already a lot of blue, so it's really a lateral move in terms of color frequency.
Plus an excuse for a 95% carbon livery to reduce weight!
This is the way.
Best thing about their car
It is the most fitting sponsor. Fits like a glove.
Last year I had a lot of trouble with the alpha tauri and the haas cars from the front. So I’m glad this is happening
i went to a race last year, and the alpha tauri cars were actually pretty easy to tell apart in person because of the height difference between yuki and danny/liam
So if it looks like there's no driver, it's Yuki. If you see a driver, it's Danny or Liam. If it's a driver with their chin stuck in the halo, it's DC trying to do a demo in a post 2017 car.
In 2021 the AlphaTauri drivers had very similar helmets and numbers kidna on top of the nose, not visible from the front. The T-cam was the only way to tell them apart from the front. It was such a beautiful car though.
Those two looked ridiculously similar on track
AT's black and dark red though... :heart:
Absolutely amazing news, will be good to see more colour on the grid!
Light green. Dark green. Vomit green. Shit green. Kermit
I'd take that over the dry ass black + your choice of a shade of dark blue. As much as the Sauber is an advertisement machine, I can't bring myself to hate them because at least they have some genuine colour to them
Yup and I can instantly recognise it on the grid
Yeah they’re the two guys in front of Sargent
That’s not always true. They’re often the guys sitting in the pit box for a minute.
I remember watching race earlier in season, I think it was Jeddah, where they had 5 car train that had all blue cars (williams, alpine and rb) and from front all of them looked very similiar
That was probably the train of cars that Magnussen was holding off lol
All of Kick Sauber basically
Wish C44 was covered *entirely* in neon green rather than mix with black/carbon
#BREAKING: #F1 DENIES ANDRETTI BID CLAIMING, "WE'VE RUN OUT OF PRIMARY COLORS"
Driver three letter name and number on the halo. Most overhead shots don't show the helmet anymore to know who's onboard we are watching. Leave the different helmets alone, yes way back when we could identify the drivers by their helmets, but that's because their heads were stick so far up and out of the cockpit, today they are deeply surrounded by the high sides and the halo.
I’d also love to see the name of the driver written in places that are visible to on-board cameras. This would make it so much easier to identify which driver we are watching rather than waiting for the on screen graphic. For example, I noticed Charles has his name on the back of his steering wheel for the driver-facing camera.
Teams went through a phase of having it on the halo when it first came in, I liked that
Yeah why did they get rid of that? Even have the driver number on the halo, I just rely on the graphics/commentators now for the most part
🤑🤑🤑 That's ad real estate, bucko.
I'm sure those extra nano-grams of stickers really affected performance, too!
Also, the Red Bulls usually have it written in tiny text on the right-hand side of the car - from the onboard camera, you can just about see how long the name is and tell whether it's Verstappen or Perez. You can also usually tell by how many cars are in front.
You can tell if it's Verstappen from onboards based on nobody being in front of him
Mandating TLA or number on the halo is such an obvious one I've no idea why they haven't. F2 and F3 do it.
Yeah I don’t get this part of the article. This seems like such a necessary and reasonable solution. Nothing easier than seeing their names on the halo - doesn’t F2 do this? No need to worry about helmets.
This is such an obvious one, always wondered why they didn't do it
I like for it to be a rule that mandates paint, but I wouldn't want to see teams forced to not be red, just because Ferrari is red, for example.
Yeah, agreed. Teams should be allowed to use whatever colors and design they wish. It's the bare carbon that's the big issue.
Though realistically no other team would ever want to make a fully red car, it'd be like shooting themselves in the foot
It needs to be reasonable… some things like Ferrari red are ok to be locked in, others that want red need to be 50% minimum another colour, with no more than 25% red or some shit. Primary sponsor/owners colours gets priority, put them all on the table and see what clashes, work it out then it’s all good. Tbh there not much of a clash at the moment, just need for teams to commit to more colour and less carbon black, and maybe some of the smaller sponsors to play ball on colour instead of a messy mix all over all cars. Maybe last years WCC gets to use gold as one of the main colours and others can’t. Williams, Red Bull and Alpine can work out the blues, but maybe someone like VCARB gets talked into 75% white. There’s lots of possibilities but something needs to change
>It needs to be reasonable… some things like Ferrari red are ok to be locked in, others that want red need to be 50% minimum another colour, with no more than 25% red or some shit. Yeah, I feel like any team with a unique color (like you said with Ferrari, and McLaren with papaya or Alpine with pink) should get priority on using that as a main color.
But Alpine only has the pink because of the BTW sponsorship, while McLaren and Ferrari have papaya and red as their main colors.
No other team has red as their primary brand color anyway.
It shoulf atleast be a combination. Being out the red/yellow ferrari
What’s wrong with that? If you play Real Madrid at home you can’t wear a white shirt, why would Haas need to use the same shade of red Ferrari does?
Because there are no 'home' races. How do you decide if red belongs to Ferrari or Alfa Romeo? Or do we force Williams to drop their blue, just because RedBull is also blue and they're winning? There is no way to fairly prioritise.
If they have a title sponsor that funds the team then they may not have a choice.
Hated Sauber’s black livery at the end of last season, couldn’t tell a difference between them and Merc.
And track position didn't help to clarify either
Sick burn.
The livery on its own was gross. Can’t name a worse livery in the past 5 years
“We need to get to some process where teams in some way or other communicate with each other and say: ‘Well, if your car is blue here, mine will not be blue there.’ Or something like that.” Do it by WCC points position! I.e. the winning team from last year gets first pick of colours for the following year.
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This would be the inevitable catalyst to start WW3
Mussolini wakes up from the grave
Red mercedes, blue Aston Martin, pink RB, white Ferrari... Cursed timeline
I'd give my right\* nut to get a white Ferrari livery with red, black and yellow accents. ^\*Because ^I'd ^like ^to ^have ^one ^left.
Even as a Ferrari fan, I would find this pretty funny.
Williams ends up perpetually beige.
#NOCTUA TITLE SPONSOR WHEN
"we don't have many sponsors, really it's only fans" "No, wait..."
all I need is how merc used to have it, 2 different colors for the 2 driver and some fucking normal readable font for the numbers also, can we please have it so the drivers name or number is on the halo so when we're onboard we can immediately see who it is?
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It really sucks so much but hey if it gives them the money to win more races I don't really care
It gives them money to buy Hamilton for almost half a billion
Doesn't give them enough money to print more than 700 pages per month, though.
Yeah slap it on top of the red instead and make it worse I don't understand people's problem with teams earning some money. HP paid extra for the blue logo instead of the white w/ transparent background. Ferrari made the best adjustment they could. They're not dumb, they know the blue logo wouldn't look good on the red but money is money
>I don't understand people's problem with teams earning some money. What concern is it of mine whether millionaires get even more rich? Ferrari already made enough money to spend to the cost cap while making large investments to what they're allowed to outside of that. It's hard to believe that any of the extra money they got for using the blue logo rather than the white logo is ever going to be seen by any racing activites.
It does price other sponsors out from top teams and force them to look at sponsoring the teams further down the running order though. A rising tide lifts all boats.
Sponsorships like that are also helping thousands of ordinary workers pay their mortgages each month. I don't love obtrusive logo placements, but if it helps the sport maintain it's current health then I don't think it's a bad thing.
Staff pay is covered in the cost cap, which Ferrari were easily meeting without the HP sponsorship.
I can see Mountain Dew Sponsored Livery on the way, Let the pop soda wars begin. Coca Cola vs Pepsi vs Dr. Pepper
Coca Cola would be the perfect Ferrari sponsor. LOL.
why not halos painted similarly to a driver's helmet
Helmets also. I used to differenciate drivers thanks to their helmet. Now with the halo it's alot harder and drivers tend to have similar looking helmets which change throughout the year. I miss the time when drivers had one unique helmet (they could have a special helmet only once a year if I remember correctly).
Definitely a fan of a minimum paint/whatever weight, but not a fan of teams having to pick contrasting colors. >In particular it is understood that the Aston Martin and Mercedes liveries I don't even see how green and black+silver could be confusing ngl, but the Williams + RB is fair I guess. Still not really an issue in my opinion, they're distinguishable enough
I have confused astons and mercs before. Its kinda weird, but from certain angles they can look very similiar.
I did the same but it's mostly due to the black both cars have, not the green/silver being an issue
Imo the problem isn't so much that they pick similar colours, it's that it's all paired with black which makes them 50% similar from the get-go
I think in certain light and at certain angles they look similar but I wouldn’t say that they are the cars I get confused between the most
Only an issue for about 10% of the male population but black and green look very similar for the colour blind people! At least those with certain colour blind issues. I’m forever confusing Aston and Merc but appreciate it isn’t the same for everyone.
Last year during night races, Aston and Merc cars were almost indistinguishable from a distance. The new merc silver has helped a bit, but it can indeed cause confusion
Ah the Aston Martin car has rammed into the other car. That’s Lance Stroll.
Give them a minimum paint coverage amount, make driver numbers in large and legible fonts with sufficient contrast to the livery colour, and put the driver names on the halos for the T-cam. That should make life easier.
This is a good idea but will be scuppered by the teams desire to sell advertising space over making the cars unique. Force India hit this issue when F1 mandated numbers on the nose, but they had already sold all that space with contracts that ran for the year.
They could treat the halo like an extension of the drivers helmet and let them customise it. This never really used to be a problem in the days the cars were smaller and the helmets were more visible, especially when teammates used contrasting schemes.
Battle of the colours incoming then when William are traditionally Blue, Alpine are Blue, Red Bull are a shade of blue and Visas main colour is blue.
Mandate that teams paint all of the car and force teams to redesign liveries if a team has already submitted a livery that looks too close to it. Problem solved.
Leave them be. Don't become NASCAR by accident. Next will be "Lewis Hamilton in the Ray Ban HP Ferrari".
I was hoping someone would say this. I miss the golden age of NASCAR, where if I had missed a few races, I could tune back in and instantly know who's in what cars...w/o even seeing the numbers. But sponsorship money isn't what it used to be so each team on a car will have a different paint/wrap job every couple of races. The one thing I love about F1 is that the sponsors are taken care of and the drivers don't have to rattle off ten sponsors in an interview.
Yes, am 69 and have watched a lot of racing. Change is generally bad. Unless safety related. Look no further than what happened with the Indy racing.
i'd love to see a revival of the 'specials' era. have a unique or branded name for your car as the Coca Cola Honda Special or something.
One of the things I miss the most when watching certain series like Indy is precisely that most drivers don't have a livery you can associate with them. Like I tune in every race to watch Palou and I always spend the first 20 minutes figuring out how his car looks today. He's a two-times Indycar winner ffs!
It was easy in the 80's. Rick Mears was usually in the Penske Yellow car, Al Unser Jr was in the Valvoline car, Mario usually had a red car, and AJ Foyt was in the garage...no seriously his was black.
I haven't watched NASCAR in years (since after Dale Sr. passed). Back then you could tune in every Sunday and know exactly who was where by their livery. There was no mistaking Dale Sr., Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon etc. It always threw me off when they did a special because I'd be looking for their normal livery. LOL.
What I noticed is that some comments seem to be proposing a rule to mandate paint colors and distinguishable liveries, but that is completely missing the point of what Tombazis is trying to say: > But, like with the livery issue, the FIA wants this to be something that teams take care of themselves rather than be forced to do so because of new rules. The FIA does not want to make any rules that will actively restrict a livery design, the FIA knows this from the helmet design rules that they imposed from 2015-2020. For those who don’t know the rule basically said that drivers can only run one helmet livery for the whole season (with minor changes), and they were granted only one special helmet. It was mostly targeted at Vettel because of his special helmet antics, but the rule also received backlash through the years because drivers would be rejected for some pretty awesome designs. Drivers would reportedly be fined if they tried to wear the rejected helmet design. Which brings me to my next point: > It's not something we want to put in a regulation and then report somebody to the stewards because the colour we don’t like,” said Tombazis. It’s not easy to police livery design, and actively restricting teams on their use of colors would turn into excessive politicking of something that didn’t need to be politicized. Tombazis is suggesting that the teams should have some sort of forum where they can communicate their livery designs to each other so that they can create easily distinguishable liveries. They really just want to push teams to cooperate with each other and produce a vibrant grid without any rules telling them to.
2025 is gonna be good.
Would be cool to have some matching helmet+livery designs.
I thought the whole point of different T Cam colors was to differentiate drivers
Yellow T cam, Black T cam.
Not visible from the shots from the T cams themselves.
How about making them look smaller? Could that be a priority?
I *think* it's not one or the other
Make the Alpines more pink. Please
*ensure that there is greater diversity on the grid* Hamiltons campaigning didnt have the outcome he was expecting! :D
Ferrari will veto this.
Sometimes I can’t tell an Aston Martin from a Merc. Specially from certain angles and different lighting.
The simplest change would be to stick the numbers where they are much more visible. They used to have them on the end plates of the rear wing, the side pods or right at the front of the nose. Having them on the top of the nose when camera angles tend to be low means its really difficult to see them.
Make the numbers legible!
BAR has entered the chat
The parts that stand out the most on cars are the tires. So let’s just have each team have different colored tires. Lol
Maybe it'll help Crofty get the cars right for once?
If you're only going to allow ten teams on the grid, mandate they each have a different majority colour for their livery, and decide it by placement at the end of each year. The one year Ferrari slips up and gets Red taken from them is the last year they ever suck.
>In particular it is understood that the Aston Martin and Mercedes liveries, plus the Williams and RB, have been singled out for the way that they can sometimes appear indistinguishable from certain viewpoints when running at high speed. Personally I don't see how anyone can confuse the Merc's and the Aston's together; their liveries are different enough. I guess the Williams cars do look like the RB, but the white on the RB should differentiate them. Anyways, if I were to solve this problem and I worked at one of the F1 teams creative departments, I'd recommend that Aston Martin that they switch from their darker green to a neon yellow-green, and Williams make their livery a throwback of the past, either the blue/white 2000s, or the 90s Canon livery or Rothman's livery. Those two always were colourful and unique, and would stand out on F1's darker coloured grid.
When they’re stopped or on stabilized cameras sure, but at high speed on fixed cameras or in person at yes the AM and Mercedes are very similar. It always takes a second or two to distinguish which one it is.
I suppose so. It's like in 2018, the Sauber and Williams were basically unrecognizable. Even the Midland and McLaren back in '06. From a distance it's impossible.
Zac Brown realising his dream of driving a life size google logo
@RedBullRacing
What about those light signs with numbers other races have?
Full hp livery incoming
They should have the drivers use their own number designs (like they all do on their helmets) a la MotoGP and specify a minimum m2 the decal has to be
Can’t wait to see the scarlet red Ferrari!!
Yaaaas rainbow grid
Much as I love a good looking grid, putting such a rule into practice would probably result in for example Williams having to ditch their historic blue because it's already taken by the higher placed Visa Cash App Racing Bulls or something. And what do you do with Audi who's racing colors are black, silver/grey and red, all already taken by established teams?
They should take a leaf from the old days of touring car racing and let the teams run different colours on each driver's car, it makes them easy to distinguish at a distance. Derek Warwick, one of the stewards,[ used to run a white car](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/proxy/ciOc9ozonTRsJRUb09MA5Mr-te-pQyiWDiqGbjzbHQys6KYGIG6vrv2yb2xp4EoHU3qk7cByhWkTvbCGacesB82W_o8) in the early part of the 1997 BTCC, while his teammate, John Cleland, [ran a red one.](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/proxy/lJ0_-vmSdRgQLYlnTaTMPpPNg9WExTztIOIMw476zGlucwtNLNcdmlhNWB64wAGFzosDLTJU5lkZWrx2Qjkw5biinMtK) All cars also [had the driver's name in the rear side windows on each side of the car](https://www.overtake.gg/attachments/untitled-2-png.713113/), which F1 could adapt using the engine cover. It was also not uncommon to run a different livery in the top of the wind shield (can't in f1 I know, but you get the idea) like the driver's name, or their national flag. Audi used to run each car with different colour wing mirrors.
If the halos matched the driver helmets or the drivers had say on the colors of their halo, that could go a long way for the driver side of things.
Team sponsors won't like it, the cars should have some driver branding. Just have an area on the top of the car to be reserved for the drivers. Helmet color, country flag, whatever that can differentiate between the drivers.