Renault launch R27 January 24, 2007
Posted by Seb Patrick in Launches, News, Renault.1 comment so far
… and it’s awful. Really, really hideous.
(picture from F1Racing.net)
Here’s a hint, boys – when you’ve got a new title sponsor with new corporate colours, you don’t need to just try and fit them onto your existing livery, because it’s the ideal opportunity to get a new one. If they’re desperate to get their orange on the car, and you already have blue on the car, then drop the yellow. Don’t make it look like someone’s just glued two completely different liveries together. And also, don’t break the cardinal rule of having a light colour (the orange) crossing the white without a darker colour to bridge it.
The funny thing is, when the car first appeared under blue light, it was difficult to tell what colour it was, and it seemed like they’d gone for a fully dark blue and white colour scheme with hints of orange – and looked rather good (even if we really don’t need another blue/white car on the grid). Unfortunately, when the real colour was unveiled… well, I wasn’t at the launch, but I wouldn’t be surprised if mass vomiting was the order of the day. And I can barely bring myself to post pictures of the uniforms – remember when I said I thought the McLaren suits were the worst of all time? How very, very wrong I was…
Seriously, though, I would not be at all surprised to see this livery undergo a rethink when the Renault brass realise how bad it looks on TV cameras. As it is, the reigning Constructors Champions and providers of the Drivers Championship-winning car for the last two years suddenly look like a bunch of rank amateurs. Ugh.
New Lids January 24, 2007
Posted by Seb Patrick in Helmets.add a comment
The new Renault launch is later today, and I’ll be covering that from 1pm GMT, with news of whether or not we actually get to see their eagerly-anticipated new livery.
In the meantime, though, it’s worth noting that both the main title contenders for this year have got new helmets to go with their new teams. Alonso, predictably enough, has removed the Mild Seven colouring from his lid with his switch to McLaren, but it’s disappointing that almost all traces of red and yellow have gone as well – the “Spanish flag surrounded by blue” had certainly become a signature look for him, and replacing it with the colours of his car means that he just ends up looking like a corporate slave to the team. Or, looking at that picture, Takuma Sato.
Kimi, meanwhile, had already ditched his trademark blue in 2006 to fit in with McLaren a bit more, so his new Ferrari design is more of an evolution of that, with more white on it. It’s a nice clean design, although it seems to me more than a little reminiscent of someone else who once drove for Ferrari…
I don’t know, though. Gone, it seems, are the days when each and every driver would have a distinctive design that they’d stick with throughout their career, no matter how it clashed with their current car. Great helmets – Senna, Hill, Mansell, etc. – can be just as effective and identifiable as a great livery, and it’s a real shame that so many drivers now feel the need to change their design from year to year based on what colour car they happen to be sitting in…
Renault test R27 in interim livery January 17, 2007
Posted by Seb Patrick in News, Renault, Rumour Mill.add a comment
Of course, what we’re seeing here is unlikely to be much like the final livery (to be unveiled next week), but the shade of blue chosen is interesting – could this be the predominant colour on the car this season? Might we see the rumoured blue and orange after all, with orange taking the place of the Renault yellow currently on display? Note that this livery is, essentially, last year’s design with all the sky blue taken out and replaced with the darker one, though; and with such a dramatic change in title sponsor we’re unlikely to simply see the same layout coloured in differently. Even so, it’s potentially a good indication of the direction the team might be going in…
BMW launch F1.07 January 16, 2007
Posted by Seb Patrick in BMW, Launches, News.1 comment so far
Move along, nothing to see here. Except, perhaps, for Nick Heidfeld’s scary new beard and less scary new lid design.
They haven’t even done much in the way of moving sponsors around! That’s a Toyota of a new launch, that is, pure and simple.
New Williams! (?) January 15, 2007
Posted by Seb Patrick in News, Williams.1 comment so far
Well, it’s all happening today – and after the disappointment at the lacklustre new McLaren design, it now appears that, despite the official launch not being until next month, pictures of the new Williams have leaked onto the internet.
If these are fakes, they’re particularly good ones – so the smart money would seem to be on their being genuine. If so, it’s an interesting shift back towards the look of the 2001-2005 BMW years – but note the hint of the turquoisey blue from last year atop the sidepods and along the nose. It’s also intriguing just how little space title sponsors AT&T seem to command on the car – with far more prominence given to Chinese PC manufacturers Lenovo (they now make IBM’s Thinkpads, fact fans).
If this is real, I’m a little disappointed, to be honest. Last year’s Williams had probably the best livery on the grid, and this feels too much like a step back towards a look that had really run its course. Still, at the same time, it remains a very smart look, and it does positively cry “Williams”, at least. But we won’t know for sure if this is the final livery until the official launch on the 2nd of February!
Thanks to the Planet-F1 Forum for the scoop…
Ferrari and McLaren launch : World Continues To Yawn January 15, 2007
Posted by Seb Patrick in Ferrari, Launches, McLaren, News.add a comment
So, after the frenzy of hype surrounding the release of images of the car on their official site this afternoon, it turns out that the new McLaren livery is… exactly the same as last year’s, complete with Vodafone’s name in the place of Emirates, and… replacing Johnnie Walker on the sidepods. And it turns out that the blurry pictures of de la Rosa testing behind closed doors weren’t of an interim livery, but were of the precise livery itself.
Sometimes it’s not all that fun to be right. Sigh. Oh, and to cap it all off, Ron Dennis’ lot have decided to put poor Fernando and Lewis in what might just be the worst-looking uniforms in the history of the sport.
If anything, Ferrari’s launch was actually more interesting. Alright, so the car still looks pretty much the same as it has done since Marlboro came onboard, but they’ve changed the colour of the front wing for the first time since 2000, and the now all-red beast is actually quite intimidating-looking.
But are they really going to spend the entire season with a Marlboro-replacing set of white dashes along the engine cover, nose and rear wing?
Anyway… after the anticlimax of the McLaren launch, all I can really say is – roll on 24th Jan! Meanwhile, join us tomorrow for what will undoubtedly be another boring new car from BMW…
Wild Rumours and Speculation… January 14, 2007
Posted by Seb Patrick in Launches, Rumour Mill.add a comment
So 2007 looks like being an interesting year in terms of liveries. Marlboro aside, the tobacco companies are gone, and so a number of teams have new title sponsors, with potentially drastic new paintjobs to go with them. And so, with the Ferrari and McLaren launches imminent, I thought it was time to take a look at some of the speculation raging over just how colourful the grid might be this year…
Toyota launch TF107 : World Yawns January 12, 2007
Posted by Seb Patrick in Launches, News, Toyota.add a comment
If there’s one thing guaranteed to dampen the excitement of yet another round of new car launches, it’s the news that Toyota are the first out of the blocks.
Ever since launching their first livery in 2002, F1’s biggest-spending underachievers have steadfastly refused to show any imagination in terms of colour schemes as the years roll on. Admittedly, it’s a very neat look – the blue on the Panasonic logo contrasts nicely with the Japanese company’s corporate red and white – but it’s also very functional and dull, the sort of thing you become a bit tired of looking at after five years of service. Certainly, nothing about the car “jumps out” any more, while the jaggedy edges of the red patches – about the only thing that changes in layout each year – just scream of an attempt to look “edgy” and “hip”.
Weirdly, despite never really changing the look of the car, Toyota do seem to like playing with the drivers’ overalls. They’ve had some nice effects over the last few years, mixing the red and white with a combination of black and grey that doesn’t normally appear on the car. They’ve blown it a bit this year, though – the grey and red stripes down the legs just look a bit silly, frankly.
With the next launch on the horizon being Ferrari (a team hardly renowned for going with dramatic changes in corporate identity!) on Sunday, it seems we’ll have to wait until Monday’s McLaren launch to get anything in the way of excitement…
