Anyway, as for the livery, it’s just about as expected – arguably, even something of an anticlimax given that the changes between 2010 and 2011 were more significant than the ones between this and last year. The design is almost exactly how the car lined up at the end of last season – the only major differences being that the sidepods are now blank (that ugly swooping CATERHAM text ditched, in favour of the team’s new logo sitting on the side of the monocoque), an adjustment to the arrangement of logos on the nose stripe (note that the Renault diamond now sits on the yellow stripe rather than in a box of its own), and the angling/recolouring of the side-on race numbers.

Oh, and it’s got a Queens Park Rangers FC badge on it. Which is just weird. I know the reasons why (they’re now owned by Tony Fernandes, if you didn’t know), but it’s still weird.

Anyway, there you have it. Clearer official pictures will no doubt be on the way tomorrow, but it’s clear they won’t be hiding much of a surprise.

Strange as it may seem, I reckon there’s a lot that we can take from this pic about how their 2012 car is going to look. Firstly, although similar in style, the shirt is different enough from the 2011 team shirt that it’s clearly not just an old one with a few new logos stitched onto it. We can reasonably assume that this is how Williams’ 2012 gear is going to look.

That in itself, then, would suggest that the car’s livery is going to be blue with red, silver and white hints, as it was in 2011. Chances are, it’ll be very similar if not identical to last year’s. This also means it’s unlikely that the team will be announcing a new major title sponsor to replace AT&T – or if they do, it’ll be one that will fit in with this existing look.

At the same time, it’s not all doom and gloom. The shirt does feature a few more sponsors than appeared last year – aside from Bruno’s personal sponsors Embratel, Gillette seem to be making an appearance as a major sponsor for the first time (I recall them appearing on the Benettons of Berger and Alesi in the late ’90s – not sure if they’ve been in F1 at all since then), and although it can’t be seen in the above pic fellow Procter and Gamble brand Head & Shoulders makes an appearance on the left sleeve.

And of course, from a ’90s purist’s point of view… well, isn’t it nice to see the word RENAULT on Williams gear again…?

But tradition is tradition, and with the launch season starting so late this year (at the time of writing, no team is scheduled to launch their car before February), I need something to write about, so let’s do a rundown of what we might be expecting to see this year…

Red Bull Racing

Will probably look exactly the same as last year.

Vodafone McLaren Mercedes

Will probably look exactly the same as last year (although wouldn’t it be lovely if those persistent rumours of switching to a black-and-red livery came true?)

Scuderia Ferrari

Will definitely look exactly the same as last year.

Mercedes AMG Petronas

I wouldn’t expect as much of a change as they made between 2010 and 2011, but some continued evolution of their distinctive silver-and-turquoise design would be nice. If I could fix one thing on the Merc, it would be to have the entire sidepod in turquoise rather than that odd halfway measure we saw last year.

Lotus F1 Team

Well, having fought so hard to win the Lotus name outright, The Team Formerly Known As Renault (And Also Benetton And Toleman) are hardly going to give up their JPS-inspired black-and-gold livery in a hurry. I’d like to see the red Total-sponsored endplates toned down, perhaps, although even those grew on me by the end of the season.

One potential hiccup, mind, is the lingering question over whether or not they’ll be allowed to race in the livery in Canada. I doubt this will cause them to change the season livery outright, but could we see them granted special dispensation to run in a one-off scheme? If so, perhaps they could make the same change they occasionally did with their uniform last year, and flip the colours? A gold car with black trim would undoubtedly look rather special (hey, if any Photoshop whizzes want to mock one up, I’ll gladly post it).

EDIT: And someone has! Brilliant, thank you Theo, aka “Vert”, for this excellent job (seen left).

Sahara Force India F1 Team

There are rumours that the buy-in of the Sahara Group might prompt a change in Force India’s livery – but with the team’s identity so closely tied to that of their country, that seems unlikely (particularly as Sahara themselves use the Indian flag in their logo). Expect more of the same orange/white/green scheme (if possibly applied in a slightly different pattern) – unless a sudden bout of even further patriotism leads to a switch to Indian sporting blue.

Sauber F1 Team

Sauber don’t do liveries.

Scuderia Toro Rosso

As with Force India, a large investment partway through 2011 led to rumours that Toro Rosso could change livery altogether for 2012. I think it’s unlikely, though – certainly, they might integrate the various Aabar-owned brands into the livery a little better this year, and we might see a bit more red and white on there (courtesy of rumoured new title sponsor CEPSA). But it’s still a Toro Rosso, it’s still selling cans of Red Bull, and so it’ll still be the same predominant blue, red and gold.

Williams F1

A once-proud team searching badly for an identity, Williams have now even lost their title sponsor – although it’s not like AT&T ever really had anything to do with the livery anyway. If a potential new sponsor doesn’t end up having an influence, then I wouldn’t be surprised to see last year’s retro-themed design continue; or perhaps alternatively, they could switch to another classic from their glory years – this one, perhaps?

Caterham F1 Team

They’ve lost the Lotus name, but they’ve already said that the green-and-yellow livery will be continuing for at least another year. Hurrah! AirAsia might see more prominent display on the car this year, too.

HRT F1 Team

Anyone’s guess, really. The 2011 livery was brilliant/mental (delete as appropriate), but the “plea for sponsors” idea was a spectacular failure. I wouldn’t mind seeing them keep the colour scheme, but please, no “YOUR NAME HERE” gubbins this time. Find some sponsors, or just leave it plain.

Marussia F1 Team

You know, if any team were going to make a major change this year, I’d expect it to be Marussia/Virgin. Now fully in the hands of the Russian sportscar manufacturer, they could well switch to a red-white-blue design to match the company’s logo. On the other hand, we know that Virgin are still around as a sponsor – so although their logo would fit quite nicely on such a design, that piece of continuity might be enough to justify keeping the smart red/black/white livery. But still, don’t be surprised if they roll up in something akin to a mid-90s Footwork…

I was actually going to wait until the site’s fifth birthday, on 12th January, to launch this – but I got everything ready a bit more quickly than anticipated, and couldn’t bring myself to wait an entire week to unleash it on you. So here it is – the brand new F1 Colours, with a brand new home, at f1colours.com.

I just thought it was about time to freshen everything up, make the site look a bit more robust and professional, and future-proof it to allow for possible expansion and growth in the future. After five years, in which you the readers have been a fantastic community and helped the site stay strong with your discussion of my posts, it just felt like it needed – and deserved! – it. But for the moment, aside from the structural overhaul and lick of paint, the site will generally remain the same in terms of outlook and focus – and all the old content and articles remain. I’ll still be most active during the months of January through March, as the F1 teams unveil their new liveries, driver uniforms, helmets and so on. And longer articles, including more entries in the Livery Histories series and guest contributions, will continue to make their every-so-often appearances.

As you can’t fail to have noticed, all of this has been done just in time for launch season – so keep your eye on the site over the next few weeks for the first tricklings-through of 2012 livery and sponsorship news! And don’t forget, you can keep up with my shorter livery-based blatherings – as well as being updated whenever there’s a new post – by following @f1colours on Twitter.

Hope you like the revamped site, and don’t hesitate to tell me what you think!

And, of course, it helps that they had some pretty smart liveries around that time. But the sky blue and white Mild Seven livery was just one in a series of multi-coloured efforts that the team would employ during their fifteen-year tenure in the sport – fitting, really, for a company whose main brand includes the words “United Colors”…

1986 – United Colors I

Having entered F1 in the early ’80s as a sponsor – hopping between Tyrrell, Alfa Romeo and Toleman between 1983 and 1985, Benetton turned their backing of the latter into full-on ownership as of the 1986 season. The writing had arguably been on the wall the year before, when the entire car was decked out in a quite fetching “United Colors” livery featuring assorted flags of the world – but rather than carry this through to their full-on ownership, the company came up with something else new for their first season as “Benetton Formula”.

I’m quite fond of this car – I featured it in my top liveries of all time in a highly respectable twelfth place, commenting that the most striking aspect was the way the multi-coloured brush strokes conveyed a message of “speed”. I have to admit, though, that I greatly prefer it in the configuration pictured at left to the times it raced with multi-coloured tyres. Blegh.

1987-1990 – United Colors II

The team decided to take the multi-coloured concept a different way from 1987 onwards – although it took a while for them to get the new concept, which would see them through the remainder of the years for which they were the primary sponsors of their own team, quite right. Certainly, the first attempt – at right – just doesn’t hit the mark. The main problem is that there’s one too many colours in there – and the other problem is that said colour too many is pink. Messing up the otherwise smart green nose section, the pink isn’t the only problem with this layout, which is a flawed execution of a neat idea, but it certainly doesn’t help.

 The pink was gone for 1988, and it’s an immediate and marked improvement. What’s more, the blocks of colour actually seem better-designed to fit the lines of a racing car. There’s also a better choice of shades at play, meaning the team can actually get away with having four main colours on the body of the car.

The colours fit the lines of the 1989 car, too – but sadly, the car itself is such an utterly horrendous beast that it’s actually to the detriment of the livery. Suddenly the yellow section is flat and squashed, and the blue and red sections simply come up far too high. It’s odd how essentially the same livery can look so dramatically different on two different chassis – but undoubtedly, the B189 is an ugly machine (despite the addition of 7up as a perfectly harmonious sponsor addition on the rear wing).

 There were further changes for 1990 – the new airbox meant that the yellow section could be shifted upwards, and so the green could expand to the engine cover. This actually works a bit better – the red and blue go better into the green than they do the yellow – but what ruins this effort is an abundance of boxed sponsor logos that break up its lines. Particularly, having a green United Colors Of Benetton section on the engine cover just seems counter-intuitive – couldn’t space have been found for this somewhere among the green bits?

1991-1993 – Camel

Having sat unobtrusively on the yellow sections of the previous few years’ cars, cigarette brand Camel took over as main sponsor of the team for 1991. Immediately, this was a much smarter car – red was gone from the paint job (now only appearing in sponsor decals), and Benetton’s own green was relegated to the nosecone with blue taking over as a secondary colour.

Things got confusing in 1992, however, as the team ended up running two distinct paint jobs. This is perhaps partly due to the fact that they started the season running a modified version of the 1991 B191, before switching to the new B192 later in the year – but the other obvious reason for the change is the departure of Autopolis as a major sponsor. The owners of this racing circuit were on a publicity drive in their attempts to secure a contract for the Japanese GP – but evidently by 1992 these efforts had stalled somewhat. They were still able to afford a nose-cone sponsor’s contract, but their sidepod placement was hastily replaced by a couple of Benetton logos on a design that was otherwise almost identical to the previous year.

By the time the B192 was successfully rolled out, the team’s owners had evidently decided to push their clothing brand back to the forefront of the operation – and so the new car also had a new livery, with the blue almost entirely replaced by green instead. Their “Benetton Sports System” brand now occupied the entirety of the sidepod, and would continue to do so in the coming years – but this space would also be used to push other Benetton brands depending on the race venue, such as Prince (tennis equipment) and Nordica (skiing equipment), as seen on the 1993 car below left.

The ’93 livery was a simple evolution of the later-92 design, with the blue stripe on the nose now acting as a handy place for engine supplier Ford to grab a little extra branding in the now-complete absence of Autopolis. The only other major changes were the switch from Mobil 1 to Elf – represented, unfortunately, by an ugly box on the airbox that didn’t really fit in with the scheme – and the removal of Sanyo’s white tip from the rear endplates.

1994-1997 – Mild Seven I (Striped)

There were much more significant changes to the livery for 1994, however, as the Americans of Camel were replaced with their Japanese competitors Mild Seven. At first glance the livery simply looks like it’s done a straight swapping of the yellow of Camel for the blue, turquoise and white of Mild Seven – but the pattern is subtly different, even though green remained the sidepod colour and Ford kept their blue nose stripe. What’s more, Benetton had decided to add a flourish of their own branding that would remain through all but the very last of their F1 cars – the four “United Colors” now adorned the top rear of the sidepods, getting perhaps their most visible (and infamous) airing in the final race of the season.

Despite being a bold new look, however, the 1994 car felt like a disappointing hodge-podge of concepts. The requirement to include three colours on behalf of their new sponsor, in addition to their own green, meant that at least one came off as superfluous. On the 1994 car it was probably the white – the green and blue actually went together quite nicely – but it would be Benetton’s own green (along with the dark blue of departed engine supplier Ford) that was sacrificed as the team went into 1995 as newly-crowned constructors champions Benetton-Renault. Here was a much slicker effort, borne of the team’s newfound confidence as champions – it felt much more like a specifically Mild Seven-branded car, and even the new yellow sidepods (courtesy of German beer brand Bitburger) couldn’t throw it off too much.

The Schumacher era – and Benetton’s brief reign at the top of the sport – came to an end at the close of 1995, but the same basic colour scheme was kept for the 1996 season. The most notable difference was the sheer amount of white on the car – far more than at any other time since 1986. With Bitburger having followed their countryman out of the door, meanwhile, it was left to Benetton themselves to take over the sidepod again. For the first time, though, rather than being a rigid rectangle the sponsor’s box was allowed to fit to the sculpted line of those (really rather tiny) sidepods.

This still felt like a team slightly struggling for an identity following the departure of their talismen, though, and the combination of white bodywork, Mild Seven patches and Fondmetal on the rear wing made the car look surprisingly like a Tyrrell.

Although an evolution of the design, the 1997 car was a significant improvement. For the first time it looked like the two-blue and white colour scheme had been built from the ground up, and everything fit significantly better with the lines of the car. The addition of red into the mix didn’t hurt, either – there for the sake of Kickers sponsorship, it was kept to specific, narrow areas, but looked smart rather than messy. Indeed, the more I look at this car, the more I wonder why it wasn’t in my top 25 list – especially as it coincides with the time that Benetton became “my” team to support.

1998-2001 – Mild Seven II (Solid)

Change was afoot for 1998, though – and as young drivers Fisichella and Wurz replaced the old hands Alesi and Berger, and Renault made their (latest) departure from the sport, Mild Seven took over the new Benetton-Playlife car in its entirety for the first time. Gone were the compromising “stripes”, replaced by an almost entirely sky blue car with white sidepods. And it was utterly, utterly beautiful. My third-favourite F1 livery of all time, it helps that it adorned such a cute and tidy chassis design (albeit one that sadly didn’t go anywhere near as fast as everyone thought it would) – but it simply gets everything right. Multi-coloured sponsor logos (there’s red in Korean Air and Akai, orange in FedEx) are allowed to breathe on clean white space,  separated by a classy, swooping section of Mild Seven’s darker blue from the sky blue that dominates the nose and monocoque. Even the race numbers are in a smart serif font. Elegant, beautiful and classic.

It was inevitable, then, that the follow-up would be a disappointment. The ’99 car isn’t a bad design, by any means – it’s just got little detail changes here and there that don’t work quite as well as the previous version. At least the fundamental colour scheme remains in place, but it’s a shame to lose the red barge boards, replaced with trusty old Benetton green. And while the D2 logo works nicely on the rear wing endplate, it’s rather less so in a box that sticks out something rotten on the side of the nose. The biggest change, of course, was the deployment of the main Mild Seven logo on the engine cover – it was apparently part of a technique to enhance the logo at a distance and at speed on TV coverage, although it’s anyone’s guess as to whether it succeeded.

 There was a bit more of a change in 2000, as the new car did away with the white sidepods in favour of an all-over sky blue look. Even Mild Seven’s secondary darker blue was largely absent, appearing only on the barge boards. Sadly, the car lost something in the process – still relatively smart, the lack of any sort of lines on the paint job meant it lost the dynamism of the two that preceded it, and veered dangerously towards “pretty bland”. By this point, the team was actually owned by Renault – hence the fact that the car, upon its launch, featured absolutely no reference to the Benetton brand for the first time in the team’s existence (although small green United Colors boxes would be added once the car went racing).

The scheme was definitely becoming tiresome by 2001, the team’s last in the sport. The logos of Vodafone, in their brief stopoff before pitching up at Ferrari, actually slotted in quite nicely (although they would have looked even better on the ’98 car), notwithstanding the continued insistence on a “patch” effect on the side of the nose; but the extra dark blue section housing the name of the returning fuel supplier Elf just felt like an unnecessary embellishment. By this point – perhaps understandably, as they were on their way out – there was a lack of imagination that suggested the team didn’t really care about their livery any more. Certainly, the cars were far from ugly – but neither were they particularly inspired. It was a far cry from the days of “United Colors” and painted tyres, and looking at the final Mild Seven car you could be forgiven for wondering why Renault hadn’t rebranded straight away in 2000, rather than carrying on with a name that was now almost entirely meaningless.

Of course, it was with the eventual rebranding that a bit of life was breathed into the Mild Seven colour scheme, courtesy of the addition of Renault’s own yellow – but that’s another story…

I’m not as into helmet liveries as I am those of the cars, but nevertheless, I think there’s a fair amount of interest to be found in paying attention to the changing trends, and to the habits that some drivers have of switching designs frequently, or using one-off paint jobs, and so on. Personally, I think helmet designs were at their best between around the 1980s and late 1990s – during that time, just about every driver had a distinctive yet usually simple design. The patterns would be large, and easily reproducible - in comparison to helmet designs in other sports (such as superbikes), they were never needlessly complex or detailed. This meant that there were a wealth of classic and memorable designs (and at some point, I’ll get around to doing another feature on some of my favourites from this era and beyond).

Since the turn of the century, however, there’s been more of a shift in fashion towards more elaborate and complex designs – helmets that look terrific in close-up, but from a distance are far less distinguishable against the backdrop of a car. There’s also tended to be a bit less reliance on national identity (in the past, an especially high percentage of drivers’ helmets would be based around their national flag), and a lot of drivers are far less concerned about having a single branded image following them through their career – instead changing their design at the drop of a hat, to please either the demands of teams/sponsors or simply their own whims. It’s an idea that surely seems anathema to fans of the likes of Senna, Hill or Mansell.

Among the 2011 helmets, there are a number of these more “modern” designs – but pleasingly, a number of drivers do still have what I’d call “classic”-style paint jobs, some of them among the more recent additions to the sport. So let’s have a closer look at them all…

Red Bull

Of course, Seb Vettel has been the king of ever-changing designs during his short time in F1. The driver most closely identified with the blue and silver “can” design that Red Bull seem to force upon most of their pilots, Vettel has instead frequently taken the opportunity to  experiment with the area around the upper and lower rings of the helmet. Happily, however, he appears to have settled – for the moment – on this shiny, swirling design, as seen towards the end of last season, and throughout pre-season testing and in Australia. It’s probably one of the better designs he’s employed, too. Meanwhile, Mark Webber sticks with a variation on his signature design – I like this look, although I’m not sure about the needless jagged edges that were introduced more recently to it.

McLaren

It’s difficult to fault Lewis Hamilton‘s design – it’s a good tribute to one of the greatest without being a direct lift, it adds (in the form of the red line) a flash that sets it apart as his own, and upon his arrival in the sport it immediately marked him out from a distance in the silver of his McLaren – just like the similar design used to do for Senna. As for Jenson Button, I liked this design when it was a clever twist on the Union Jack (in fact, when he first arrived in F1, it was just a wraparound Union flag design), turning the lines into the letters “JB” – but I’m not as keen on it now that it’s become more pointed and angular, as I think it’s moved away from its original intent. That said, it’s better than the fluorescent variant he used in his title-winning year…

Ferrari

I’m disappointed in Fernando Alonso‘s recent helmet choices, as I think he had a brilliant, consistent design for his first few years in F1. The mixture of the Spanish flag and the light blue (switched to for the sake of Mild Seven sponsorship, but kept even after they left Renault) worked really well, but after moving to McLaren he ditched the design for one that matched the car – and although he’s gone back to assorted variants on it since, none have really worked. His current Ferrari version is at least significantly better than the mostly-red 2009 effort, but it still doesn’t really seem sure what it wants to be any more – there’s too much going on. Felipe Massa, by contrast, has stuck pretty rigidly to a two-colour scheme for his entire F1 career – it’s evolved, but not hugely, and is still recognisably his. Even though the more curved current version does look a bit like he’s being attacked by a radioactive octopus. Incidentally, it’s interesting to note that for this year, Ferrari have finally dropped the white stripe around the top that previously signified the Marlboro sponsorship – it makes the team’s lids look somewhat less distinctively “theirs”.

Mercedes

I can understand why a superstitious Michael Schumacher would favour using a red helmet – he didn’t start winning titles for Ferrari until he changed the white portion to red in 2000 – but I still greatly prefer the old design, with the German flag and the white upper and lower rings. Even the version that was red, but still had the flag in it, was better than this all-red thing – which just looks odd in the silver Mercedes, and even worse with the black “Monster” panels on it. Nico Rosberg, meanwhile, has a nice, straightforward and distinctive design – although I’m not sure I didn’t prefer it when the grey section was blue, as in his Williams days. That said, one thing you can say in Mercedes’ favour is that it’s impossible to get the two drivers mixed up when looking at the car from a distance!

Renault

I’m pretty sure Nick Heidfeld changes his helmet design more frequently than I change my socks. Anyway, for his fill-in stint at Renault, he’s team-matched – a practice I don’t really approve of, but it does make for a nice-looking design in this instance (and fortuitously gives him a somewhat German colour scheme). Though I think it’d be better if his “Q” design was gold on both sides, rather than red on one. Meanwhile, Vitaly Petrov has a nice, clean and simple design – and it’s flag-based, to boot. Excellent work.

Williams

In a way, it’s almost good that Rubens Barrichello is at a team who won’t sully his helmet with colourful sponsor logos – it is, after all, the longest-serving design in the sport (and in terms of race starts, in the sport’s history), and although it’s a little dull, it’s a pleasing reminder of a simpler time. Pastor Maldonado, meanwhile, earns points for using his country’s flag – but otherwise his design is somewhat forgettable.

Force India

I like Adrian Sutil‘s design quite a lot – although it could stand to have a bit more of the burgundy in place of some of the silver. What’s odd is that it looks like it’s been designed to go with his team’s test livery from 2007 – something they’ve long since dropped in favour of white, orange and green. Nevertheless, it’s a pretty smart job – unlike Paul di Resta, whose design isn’t really one thing or another, simply a mess of clashing bright colours in a nondescript pattern. Poor.

Sauber

I do like the colour scheme of Kamui Kobayashi‘s helmet a lot, even though I think the design itself is a little busy. The pattern in the main red circle is smart, though. It’s good to see Sergio Perez employing the Mexican flag colours in his design – although the chosen shades are a little bright for me. It’ll at least make him stand out of that dull car, but I think it could be a bit smarter.

Toro Rosso

Another driver who’s had to defer heavily to the Red Bull “can” design, Sebastien Buemi has at least managed to give it a bit of individuality with the Swiss flag red section on the top – even though it does make it look a little like he should be driving the medical car instead! Meanwhile, Jaime Alguersuari has a slightly nondescript design, but the Spanish colours fit in well with Red Bull’s own look – and I like the way the pattern implies an extension of the “sun” design. Not bad, but not hugely memorable.

Lotus

I preferred Heikki Kovalainen‘s design when it was red, rather than this bright green – his having switched to that colour upon joining Lotus doesn’t even really make sense when you consider how different a shade it is from that of the car. It’s also one of those modern, slightly random designs that isn’t really very memorable or iconic. Jarno Trulli, meanwhile, is on his third major helmet design – having started with a very ’90s-style white helmet that featured red and green strips, he then switched to a mostly-chrome design at Toyota, before settling on a shiny red effort that evoked his original design while updating it. This design did look better in his late Toyota years, though – at Lotus it’s a more orangey-red, and doesn’t really look as classic. He’s also another driver, along with Jenson Button, employing a stylised version of his initials on the side – but which is only legible as such on the left-hand side!

Hispania

An underwhelming set of designs at HRT – Narain Karthikeyan has a simple and straightforward Indian flag design, but it’s a little dull (and seems like it’d be better suited to racing in the Force India livery) – while Vitantonio Liuzzi has inexplicably made a flat grey the background colour of his otherwise pretty cool asymmetrical red/green helmet. It looked significantly better in both the blue of Toro Rosso and the white of Force India, and I’ve got no idea why he’s changed it now – it simply doesn’t work.

Virgin

A pretty nondescript design for Timo Glock – orange, white and black go nicely together as a colour scheme, but the jagged and unfocused lines of it means it feels like a couple of different designs splattered together, while the German flag has no real reason to be there and feels slapped on. But top, top marks for Jerome d’Ambrosio – a terrific design that manages to look really smart, make use of his country’s flag colours, be instantly recognisable, and feel like a classic ’80s/’90s-style design (in fact, it looked so familiar I had to check it hadn’t already been used by another driver in the past). The only real criticism is that these two drivers, employing similar colour schemes, will be quite difficult to tell apart – but that’s still a lovely design no matter which way you look at it.

So those are my thoughts – what do you folks reckon? Which are your favourites? And which are the duds?

Red Bull: Same as it ever was. I’ve never been that keen on the nose design, but the car does look good in profile. The smaller “can” design on the rear endplate is an improvement on last year, as is the stretched out bull on the engine cover. Small improvements, but I still wish they’d try something a bit different one year. 7/10

McLaren: Same as it ever (recently) was. Again, it’s in the engine cover that this has improved – losing the orange from the tip (as with the Red Bull, the change is a result of there being no more “shark fin”) is significantly smarter. But I think we are all starting to get bored of this one now. 6/10

Ferrari: The new logo is nice, and the Italian flag on the rear-wing is a good (if slightly odd) touch. But once again, I curse one of the big teams for giving me so little to talk about. At least Ferrari have a bit more of an excuse, mind. 7/10

Mercedes: This is more like it – both in terms of actually being different from last year, and because it’s a major improvement on 2010. Bolder employment of the Petronas turquoise works a treat – although the way the white text overlaps the two colours on the sidepod troubles me. But in the head-on view in particular, this is a lovely car. 9/10

Renault: Okay, look, I promise I won’t judge this car any more on the external context, or on the fact that it isn’t the wonderful 2010 design. But even aside from all of that – well, it still doesn’t entirely work. The red endplates still feel like a major mistake, and with so many lines and sponsors, the gold looks messy rather than smart. But the benefit of a black car is that even if poorly-designed it’ll look decent, and this will at least be a distinctive on-track presence. Grr at it in general, though. 8/10

Williams: I do like the idea behind calling back to the Rothmans livery (even though it makes no actual sense whatsoever), but the execution could perhaps be better. Parts of it are excellent – aside from inexplicably using silver rather than gold, the section from the cockpit to the rear wing is a proper updating of the design, looking like you suspect a Rothmans car would look if it existed in 2011 (darker blue notwithstanding). But I’m really not at all keen on the nose section, the additional colour stripes simply look too squeezed in alongside last year’s configuration, and a bit more white on there would have gone a long way. Nevertheless, after a few years of samey designs, it’s something with a bit of character to it. 8/10

Force India: I’m getting a little bored of FI’s colour scheme now, although it’s hardly their fault that there are so many other white cars on the grid. The orange and green still look bold, but I don’t think this is a particularly modern application of them – the car looks like, by turns, an early-2000s Toyota and a mid-90s Footwork/Arrows. Something a bit more swooping and curvy would be more in line with current F1 fashion. I won’t mind if Force India keep turning out in these colours, but let’s hope the pattern is a bit more cutting-edge next year. 6/10

Sauber: Well, if they can’t be bothered to design a proper livery, I can’t be bothered to comment on it in detail. BOOOOOOO. 2/10

Toro Rosso: Could they just once, just one year, consider using this car to advertise sugar-free Red Bull instead? No? Well, alright then, I suppose we’re stuck with this. And there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with it, it’s just incredibly boring by now. Five years Toro Rosso have been in the sport. That’s as long as McLaren have had the chrome for. 4/10

Lotus: Well, the only way it could be as good as last year is if it were exactly the same. But this is nevertheless another very strong effort. The shade of green chosen is just lovely, and the racing stripe along the back of the engine cover – spilling onto the wing endplate – is an interesting touch. In profile, this is 10/10, but it’s let down badly by a nose stripe that’s disappointing in the way it blends – or rather doesn’t blend – with the sponsors this time out. 9/10.

HRT: A really rather brilliant livery, let down by two pretty major flaws – firstly, there are already a couple of white cars (and another that uses the three colours of red/white/black), and secondly, it’s got no sponsors. Seriously. The small “Panda” logo is the only thing that hasn’t been brought by hiring Narain Karthikeyan. Yet nevertheless – it’s distinctive (in pattern if not choice of colours), it’s coming from an entirely fresh angle, and it’s got massive lovely race numbers on it. Although, you know, the last two occurrences I can think of of a team having race numbers on the engine cover were the ’98 Tyrrell and the 2005 Jordan. Both of which were those teams’ last years in the sport (and one of which also featured Karthikeyan). Something to think about. Anyway, it’s got imagination, even though I’m yet to be convinced we’ll actually see it race. 8/10.

Virgin: A slight let down after last year’s superb effort. Decreasing the prominence of the black makes it look that bit less imposing/menacing, as does adding grey into the mix (and, as discussed, that addition simply makes one think of Midland), and the whole thing has more of an air of CART than of F1. But it’s still a strong colour scheme on the whole, and the shape of the red pattern over the engine cover has a bit more thought in it than last year’s. I’d like the nose tip a lot more if it weren’t for the blue, though. Oh, and kudos for the pleasingly old-school stylings of D’Ambrosio’s helmet design, but more on that at a later point!  8/10

So that’s my take on them all. How about yours?

For a kickoff, there’s something fairly clever about the way the car’s been presented, at the launch itself and in these shots. Because, from the lighting, and at an initial glance, the second trim colour on the car, along with the red, appears to be gold – successfully calling to mind the Rothmans livery of the 1990s that the car is intended to evoke. But in fact, when you look closer up – and I’m sure this will become more apparent when we get either a studio launch, or some shots of the car on track – those stripes aren’t gold. They’re silver.

So in other words, should someone in authority accuse the team of advertising cigarettes, they can turn around and say “No, we’ve just put red and silver on the car in honour of our new sponsor PDVSA, I don’t know where you’ve got the fag packet idea from”.

Anyway. Just in case you don’t know what this car is supposed to remind you of, it’s one of these – or see here for a pic of your beloved site author with one. Rothmans sponsored Williams between 1994 and 1997 (before switching to their Winfield brand for 98-99), and the car was hence associated with Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve’s back-to-back titles, although also with the disappointment/defeats/tragedy of ’94-’95 (as it happens, I actually think the paint job looked best on the ’94 car, but more on that when we get to the Williams Livery History article in a short while). It’s still a slightly odd choice, mind – it’s a memorable design, but perhaps not as quintessentially “Williamsish” as, say, the Canon/Camel cars of the late ’80s/early ’90s.

The line of thinking here is clearly that, as red is being added to the car anyway in the form of PDVSA’s logo, the team might as well use its introduction to go back to a fondly-remembered colour scheme – but it’s still slightly odd, as unlike Ferrari they’re not covertly advertising cigarettes (unless a deal has gone on in secret, Rothmans – now owned by British American Tobacco – have nothing to do with the team), and unlike Renaultus they’re not trying to convince people they have anything to do with a classic team (they are the classic team the livery calls to mind).

As for the success of the application of it – well, it’s mixed, I’d say. The nose section doesn’t work for me at all – I wasn’t hugely convinced by the way the white bordering worked on the 2010 car (I’d prefer either the same colour on the top as on the sides without borders, or two contrasting colours – but not the same colour with a white line sandwiched between), so I don’t really like it here, and the way the coloured lines tail off just makes it feel confused. I think they’d have been better served having white run to about halfway down the nose, then have the rest be solid blue.

But from the cockpit rearwards, it significantly improves. The profile view looks great – even though the way it’s a bit like the Rothmans livery but in a different stripe configuration calls to mind what Sauber have done with the old BMW design – and I especially like the way “randstad” occupies the space that would have been “Rothmans” (that is, on the 1997 car – which swapped the patterns of blue and white on the engine cover from the way they’d been for the previous three years). Viewed from behind through the rear wing, too, the effect is really good. Some of the white space, though – especially on the airbox – could really do with another sponsor.

As a Williams fan, it’s nice to see a bit of discussion/excitement about the team’s livery – and after testing there seems to be a good level of optimism about their chances in 2011 (although “this could be the year we get back towards the top” is the mantra of the Williams fan). But it has to be said that the livery isn’t that different from those of previous years, and after making such a big deal of launching the livery when the car itself had already been seen in testing, we might have felt entitled to expect something a bit more radical and different. And I simply can’t get over the idea that, for reasons apparently based in nothing other than nostalgia, we now have three cars on the grid that look like they have tobacco advertising on them. Something about that just doesn’t feel right.

Oh, and now that we have all the new cars: yes, I’ll be doing my customary run-down of what I think about each in comparison to one-another. Look out for that before the season starts, along with – yes, and I know I promise this every year and never get around to it, but this time I absolutely will – a look at each of the drivers’ helmet designs!

Meanwhile, from the side, the effect is more reminiscent of a mid-90s Footwork than anything. It’s an interesting design, although I don’t think the blockiness of it really conveys “speed” in the same way as the curving, swooping lines of its two precedessors. The trailing blocks along the side are evidently meant to suggest that, but I’m not sure it entirely comes off. And I like a bit of asymmetry on a car – but “a bit” is about as much as this one has got: it’s only the nose pattern that differs from side to side, with the paint job evening out by the time it reaches the sidepods. Still, it’s a bold new effort from the team, and they should be applauded for finding new ways to apply a colour scheme that remains unique to them among the history of F1 liveries as a whole.

Another thing that amuses me about the car is its method of making it look like it has more sponsors than it actually does – almost every logo on the car is a subsidiary of Vijay Mallya’s United Breweries Group, but the casual onlooker might not necessarily be aware of that, and so would assume that the team are in better commercial health than they are (although they evidently don’t have much of a problem with being bankrolled almost entirely by Mallya). And while it’s amusing to see another example of a car featuring three different brands of a particular product type (to go alongside the Lotus Renault also having Lada on it), I can’t help but wonder if the team are perhaps over-strengthening the link between cars and alcohol…?

So given that they were the team with comfortably the worst livery on the grid last season, it would have been difficult for HRT to go downwards this year. As it is, with the hiring of a Hollywood design consultant in the shape of Daniel Simon, we knew something a bit exciting would be afoot. And so it’s proved.

First things first – the car in and of itself: it’s great. I worry it might get “old” quickly (and there’s something quite mid-to-late ’90s about it, don’t you think?) but at the moment it’s a breath of fresh air, something genuinely distinctive and interesting. It’s perhaps a little too self-consciously “race”-y, but you can’t deny that the fading chequered flag motif and nose-tip racing stripe are fun, quirky features. The colour scheme is great, too – you can’t go wrong with a white/red car accented by black, it instantly calls to mind certain Marlboro cars. And, of course – it’s got GREAT BIG RACE NUMBERS on it. I don’t have to tell regular readers just how much I love seeing GREAT BIG RACE NUMBERS on a car.

As with the Marussia-Virgin revealed yesterday, it’s perhaps a touch American-looking – but that’s not necessarily a bad thing (in fact, how good would this have looked as the USF1 livery instead? Try imagining the black bits as blue, instead…). Interesting to note, too, that the colour scheme’s not entirely dissimilar to the cover art of Daniel’s book Cosmic Motors. So are the colours his choice, or Hispania’s?

Now, though, to the downsides. First of all, it has to be said – we’re going worryingly back towards 2009 levels when it comes to the number of predominantly white cars on the grid. Two – in the shape of Sauber and Force India – is just about acceptable (and this is assuming FI do stick with their usual design – we’ll find out in about twenty minutes), but three (a quarter of the cars on the grid) is starting to push it. It’s at least a distinctive look (despite using the same primary colours as Virgin), but let’s hope it can stand out on the track.

Secondly, the sponsorship situation is undoubtedly worrying for anyone interested in the team. The car wasn’t exactly awash with logos last year – but this time out, everyone who sponsored the team has disappeared (presumably most departed with Senna), and there’s not even a “Hispania” logo on it. Instead, there’s just one sponsor – Tata, meaning Narain Karthikeyan’s likely in a very strong position regarding the retention of his seat – and the usual prime sponsor spaces are given over to phrases like “This could be you” and “This is a cool spot”. Are these placeholders for an upcoming deal(s)? A bit of witty self-commentary on the lack of sponsorship? Evidence of a new marketing scheme involving the general public getting their names on the car? Or really just a simple, desperate plea for new sponsors? Time will tell.

Despite these concerns, it’s undoubtedly a cool-looking car – I do wonder about Hispania’s own role in all of this (it seems their identity’s been pushed right back into the background, which leads me to wonder whether they’ll be in charge of the team for much longer or if someone new’s waiting in the wings), but it’s undeniable they’ve made an immeasurable improvement over last year. Whoever ends up joining Karthikeyan in car #23 this year is going to have one of the most camera-friendly cars out there.