Nico Rosberg, Williams FW31 (LAT)

Williams
Frank Williams has a long history in Formula 1. After a number of aborted attempts, Williams and Partick Head founded Williams Grand Prix Engineering. With sponsorship from Saudi Airways and TAG, the car sported a classic Green and white color scheme.

A few years later, in the era of Nigel Mansell and Nelson Piquet Sr, Canon, Mobil and ICI came on board and the cars where split with a yellow top, blue central stripe and a white bottom.

In 2009, the cars look very different, the multi colored liveries have given way to a toned down Blue and White livery, which has its origins in the Williams BMW livery of 2000. Like McLaren, all the sponsors are in the base livery colors, which give a professional, high end look. Williams are fortunate, in that AT&T, RBS and Philips all have Blue in their corporate identity.

The car doesn’t have many sponsors and looks all the better for it. It is a classic design but one that works extremely well.

Force India
A massive improvement over the 2008 design. The Green and Orange originates from the Indian National Flag. A number of years ago, the Indian Government were less than impressed with cricketers and Jordan driver Narain Karthikeyan for using the Tricolor as it was against a ‘flag-code’.

Adrian Sutil of Germany and team Force India in action during formula one testing at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona, Spain. (Photo: Mark Thompson/Getty Images)

All this seems to be forgotten now as the striking livery has obvious Indian DNA. The nose is predominantly green, a color unique to the team this year. The green flows, like a flag, around the side of the tub, joined by a similar Orange strip. These continue around the tub and flow onto the sidepod. It works really well and uses area of the body which are not very useful for sponsorship. It also helps to show the form of the sidepod.

The rest of the car is white, which is a sensible choice given all the different small logos over the car. Most of the companies are owned by Force India boss, Vijay Mallya, so it is a shame these couldn’t have all been in one color. Compare the logo treatment of Williams or McLaren with the Force India car.

Despite this, it is an effective livery and it stands out from other cars on the grid. A big improvement.



Brawn GP
As I write this, the almost plain white Formula 1 car of Jenson Button is grabbing the column inches around the world as websites and traditional news media report on their fantastic win.

With so little time to prepare for the 2009 season once Brawn GP was born, the car has raced in a plain white livery with Yellow and Black flashes on the car. Although subtle, the strong yellow punches out, thanks to the black flash that is next to it. It was a conscious decision by Brawn to run a plain livery with the aforementioned flashes. This allows for a quick change to title sponsor colors, while retaining the ‘flash graphic’.

Jenson Button of Great Britain and Brawn GP. (Photo: Mark Thompson/Getty Images)

Virgin branding appeared in front of the driver, on the side of the tub and the rear wing endplate in Australia. Expect branding and more red (possibly in place of the yellow and black) to appear this weekend or from Round 3.

Unlike NASCAR, most teams will not change their liveries throughout the season. A few will make some adjustments and a few will be unable to run alcohol sponsorship at the Turkish Grand Prix. Expect the Brawn GP livery to evolve over the next 2-3 races.

Tomorrow: Mclaren, Ferrari, BMW, Renault, Toyota

Andy Blackmore is a experienced vehicle designer and motorsport livery designer and has a BA (Hons) degree in Transport Design from Coventry University in the UK. Andy worked for Yamaha and McLaren before moving to North America. During his time at McLaren he redesigned the majority of the pit equipment including the 'Darth Vader' style pit crew helmets and designed 14 liveries for the McLaren F1 GTR. Andy has also worked on design projects for BAR Honda, Yamaha, Audi Sport UK, Panoz, Creation, Radio Le Mans.com and Electronic Arts. Andy also produces ALMS and Formula One Spotter Guides, which are supported by SPEEDtv.com and Radio Le Mans.com

You can view Andy's online portfolio at www.andyblackmoredesign.com

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