Livery Loving
It’s that time of year again! The excitement is starting to build as more and more teams tease us all with their car launch dates!! This is when we get a first look at the car and the livery that the team will be using that season! While many people get excited for launch date liveries, we can’t help but think about the possibility of testing and shakedown liveries!! While it is not always a given that a team will provide us with a different eye-catching livery in Barcelona there is always hope!
Sponsorship liveries are nothing new to Formula 1, they have been around since the late 60s after replacing the national colours that were previously used on the car. Sponsorships were introduced into F1 to help teams keep up with the rising cost of racing. Teams needed a large and clear way to display their sponsors and so sponsorship liveries were born!
While many teams keep the same liveries for testing as they do for the season, only a select few teams choose to surprise us with a testing or shakedown livery. Alpine (formerly renault) has already revealed the livery they will be using at testing! While we wait to see if we will be blown away with funky liveries at Barcelona testing or heartbroken, here are our top liveries F1 has given us! (Warning there may be a lot of Red Bull in this list)
5.) Star Wars, Red Bull at the 2005 Monaco Grand Prix
While this may not come from testing or shakedowns, this livery needs an honorary mention for its dramatic flare it brought to the track!
4.) Micheal Schumacher in an all black Ferrari, Early Shakedown in Fiorano 1998
While the reasoning behind the all black exterior was probably to save painting the car for an early shakedown, we can’t help but love this car. The simplicity is beautiful!
3.) The Red (and Navy) Bull, 2019 Testing/Shakedown
Red Bull seems to have a reoccurring theme of giving us amazing liveries in testing/shakedowns, giving us high hopes for the season, and then crushing our dreams when it comes to their official livery. This livery debuted in 2019 as a “one-off” and shortly was reverted to their usual. Cool and funky but a disappointing end.
2.) Valentines at Fiorano, Alpha Romeo 2019 Shakedown
Alpha Romeo surprised everyone on Valentine’s day in 2019 with this beautiful one-off livery! The design of red love hearts was stunning and, unusual adjective for an f1 car, very pretty to look at as it zipped around the track. We only wish Alpha Romeo didn’t have to break our hearts when the livery was not kept for the full season.
1.) CamoBull, 2015 Shakedown
This livery... wow. Again the disappointment looms as this Red Bull livery made a sharp departure back to their usual. The eye-catching black and white pattern was amazing to see on track! We just hope that Red Bull will commit to a livery like this for a whole season!
Do you have any liveries you think we missed on this list? Let us know on Instagram @fs_formulas !
See you next “Send It Saturday”!
Sach & Soph
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