The 2010 season has been kicked off with Ferrari’s F10 being unveiled. There has been a lot of talk about design but also the livery which looks good but frankly it could be mistaken for Team Santander now.

Liveries are always a big focus for fans and can repulse us or make us fall in love. So while we are anticipating the new car uniforms hear is a selection from the past, ones which made us weak at the knees and some that just made us ill…

This is a love/hate livery for many. The Malboro sponsored car (with the additional major sponsors of Shell, Agip, FIAT, Goodyear and Pioneer) had enough red to show the world it was Ferrari but the additional black wings matched the tyres and made the car look so smooth. It may have been beautiful but for the majority of the red and black Ferrari era, the cars were poor. The sponsors did just look like bumper stickers mind.

The red Ferrari of Gilles Villeneuve battling Arnoux’s Renault became an iconic image from a breathtaking on track battle. The other plus side was both cars were beautiful and their striking liveries helped create an image of utmost power.

Jaguar’s rendezvous with F1 back at the beginning of the noughties has faded from minds quickly and hardly surprising when you look at the results. The livery however must never be forgotten and the R2 was weak-at-the-knees beautiful.

Back in the 80s Williams didn’t just have the famous Mansell-Piquet rivalry making everyone watch their cars but the Canon sponsorship. It was a famous relationship which made the car a beauty, a tough task when the 80s were extremely competitive when it came down to aesthetics.

For me, I’m surprised it took so long for the Toyota to catch alight. It wasn’t that the livery was ugly, it’s that it was boring. It had very little soul or passion and give me a month and I’ll have forgotten it completely.

The R29 generally made fans cry in pain once their eyes saw but I thought it was one of the most beautiful cars ever. It was made better when ING left which was probably the only good to come of the Singapore scandal. It was loud but for me it worked. It was certainly a marmite car.

Another 2009 car up, here is the mp4-24. Perhaps the shape made it that much worse but McLaren has never looked good with the Vodafone sponsorship. The red and silver just don’t go. I miss the pre-06 black and silver which made the team’s car appear sleek and like an assassin.

The Honda earth car. From a distance it looked messy and just a resounding ‘no’ from me. It had plenty of fans however.

Whenever anyone thinks of Senna it is because he is now a driving legend but the other major achievement he had is that almost every F1 car he drove was beautiful. Maybe the man maketh the car but all the liveries look pretty, damn smart so here they are:

Williams recent cars have been pretty dull. They are smart but corporate, this however is a cracker. There is just the right amount of white (even the Rothmans’ labels look good) and a nice bit of gold to give the car some character. This car will probably always be associated with Imola 94 but it deserves a mention for being a work of art.

If Mclaren want their own livery once the break with Mercedes is completely then they should go back to something like this. A lot of people have been chanting for an orange colour scheme but that just sounds scary. The red and white worked perfectly together so please go back to this Mclaren.


We end on a high with the best of them all. Whenever the word ‘livery’ is mentioned this will always spring to mind for 90% of people. JPS teamed up with Lotus in the 70s and then the 80s and both times the results were stunning. The cars oozed coolness and were the sexiest F1 car ever. The striking black and gold was the quintessential colour scheme. No livery even comes close today, they aren’t even in the same universe.

Which liveries do you like? Drop us a comment below!