Liveries in winter testing

[Manoah2u]

i like that sauber with the red front

[astracrazy]

I'm not sure why teams would do this and why sponsors would be happy to give this up. The car releases and testing is prob the time when the most pictures are taken of the car. i.e more exposure for sponsors.

[Bazza]

This is primarily for the constructors and engine manufacturers, the engine guys particularly because they really don't get a whole lot of recognition (Renault has been fairly critical of this fact).

Teams would do it because ideally it'd be regulated in - do what they're told to do. Sponsors probably wouldn't be giving up a whole lot; as I said the sponsorship livery and icons and what not must be the same, but with different colours. It's still obviously a Red Bull in my earlier post, and you can still easily tell Sauber and William's sponsors.

The flipside, like I said, was that there'd now be two launches for the car (good for photography and publicity) - the testing livery and car (with development parts that may/may not be there for race 1), and the official race 1 livery. Of course there's still going to be a big official reveal at round one, with the final look of the car.


I can't think of any car/team/group this would adversely affect. Is there a team that would look especially bland/bad/unidentifiable in engine/constructor test livery?

[Tim.Wright]

I think the fact that F1 is a racing championship not an art competition coupled with the fact that 'effectively' noone are watching pre season testing means it a lot of expense for zero benefit. If I was running a team Id be against the need to have the cars stuck in the paint shop for twice as long as normal when there is already a massive time push to get the cars ready for the first test.

Don't forget that the constructors and engine manufacturers get more recognition than anyone else because their names are in the name of the car as it is listed on the on screen graphics.

[Bazza]

I think the fact that F1 is a racing championship not an art competition coupled with the fact that 'effectively' noone are watching pre season testing means it a lot of expense for zero benefit. If I was running a team Id be against the need to have the cars stuck in the paint shop for twice as long as normal when there is already a massive time push to get the cars ready for the first test.

Don't forget that the constructors and engine manufacturers get more recognition than anyone else because their names are in the name of the car as it is listed on the on screen graphics.

Basically disagree with everything here.

Teams aren't too fussed about spending a little time in the paint shop (especially Torro Rosso, they hand-paint that bull for each engine cover). Secondly, they already have to paint the car before the first test, so it doesn't add any time or bottleneck to that.

As for constructors and engine manufacturers getting more recognition than anyone else; you're kidding, right?

Renault, who are reportedly looking for more exposure...

Red Bull’s ever-closer ties to title sponsor Infiniti, the luxury Nissan division, could be at the expense of engine supplier Renault’s exposure

Renault has won the last three championships as an engine supplier to Red Bull, but said earlier this year that it felt it was not getting the credit it deserved.

This is from 5 seconds of Googling one engine manufacturer. Ferrari isn't strongly associated with Torro Rosso, Sauber and Marussia by many, really - the long names of the team (never used in reality, ever heard someone refer to them as RBR Renaults in real life? Thought not.) don't really mean a whole lot.

[Tim.Wright]

The quotes about Renault are specifically to do with the clash with Infinity's title sponsorship on Red Bull (not Lotus, not Williams, not Caterham). No engine manufacturers are complaining about lack of exposure outside of this one particular case with one particular team.

If you can't see why disassembling a working car and sending all the parts through paint again then subassembly then again into the racebays to be assembled then losing time at the start of the next test for another shakdown is not a massive waste of time at the start of the year then I'm arguing with a brick wall.

[WillerZ]

If you can't see why disassembling a working car and sending all the parts through paint again then subassembly then again into the racebays to be assembled then losing time at the start of the next test for another shakdown is not a massive waste of time at the start of the year then I'm arguing with a brick wall.

Actually they do exactly that anyway.

After every weekend they scrape all the (still not cured) paint off, along with the sponsors stickers, bugs and grit which are embedded within it. They then inspect and if necessary repair or replace the underlying bodywork. Finally, just before it is next used, they paint it again. The paint is never allowed to cure because then it would be impossible to remove without damaging the CFRP underneath.

If they needed a different livery for some reason there is no extra time required in the paint shop.

There is, however, extra graphic design time needed; and both of your two designs would have lower production quality as the painters would be less familiar with them.

[Tim.Wright]

My issue is doing it twice instead of once in the runup to Melbs.

My understanding anyway is that they don't repaint it after each race. Certainly not after each of the initial group of fly away races.

[marcush.]

I wonder why Teams are not using surface wraps for their cars .It would be very quick to fix and you can go from design to car application almost in one go ,no hazzle with positioning of decals and as far as i know These films are very drapeable.
Of course ,engine cover and sidepods are suspect to heat and as we frequently see paint bubbles there i wonder how a film would fare under those conditions...

[zonk]

[youtube]http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SjMR4gsICog[/youtube]

[Bazza]

The quotes about Renault are specifically to do with the clash with Infinity's title sponsorship on Red Bull (not Lotus, not Williams, not Caterham). No engine manufacturers are complaining about lack of exposure outside of this one particular case with one particular team.

Actually Renault's been saying stuff like that for years, basically since their 05 and 06 championships - people just weren't relating the Renault brand very well to 'Formula 1 World Champion'.

Now they're probably not complaining that hard about not being associated with Caterham, likewise Ferrari not being well-known as Marussia's engine supplier next year (or this year, I forget). Mercedes obviously thought something similar along these lines, moving from a (reasonably) well known engine manufacturer to a full blown constructor just to repaint white cars silver.

As for repainting the same car twice, it's not like every part goes from testing to race-day. It's already been explained how they un-paint and repaint the cars every time anyway, and for testing half the time they might not even bother (new parts either don't always make it to production, or for Melbourne especially, there might be new parts for the rece not used during testing, limiting cross-over).


The graphic design shop time wouldn't be that much either, right? Same livery design, different colours. For a professional that's basically 90% of the work done, just gone in and change a few things. Actually painting it probably wouldn't be too bad either; if they're half decent they're not going to be massively confused by changing colours, and altering, printing and applying the stickers is a 5 minute job.

I wonder why Teams are not using surface wraps for their cars .It would be very quick to fix and you can go from design to car application almost in one go ,no hazzle with positioning of decals and as far as i know These films are very drapeable.
Of course ,engine cover and sidepods are suspect to heat and as we frequently see paint bubbles there i wonder how a film would fare under those conditions...

I'm not sure how well the wrapping procedure would adapt to the complex shape of a F1 car, don't those things do better on fairly flat surfaces broken by panel gaps (road cars)? I know they can handle some curvature, but for stuff like the McLaren 2011 sidepod I don't think it'd work that well, at least not without some seams (feel free to prove me wrong on this, I'm not too familiar with them).

As for sidepod heat, isn't that being massively reduced next year anyway? No more sidepod exhaust routing and packaging and such. And the panels closest to the engine are all heat-protected carbon fiber now anyway. For stuff like the nose, front and maybe rear wings, etc, I guess they'd make a lot of sense.

[A13EX_f]

Qualified vehicle wrapper here so maybe I can help, most vehicle wraps that require logos are done plain and the logos placed afterwards as positioning of the wrap is very difficult even on the side of a van so on an f1 car almost impossible, also wrapping an f1 would be very difficult but not impossible, (remember the earth dreams honda and also the red bulls with the wings of life artwork etc) to fully wrap a normal car takes about 1-2 days so is actually slower than painting a almost solid colour f1 car and then applying the logos. vehicle wraps are quite resilient to heat as they actually use a hot air gun to soften the film to make it go into position however adding it near the exhausts wouldn't be wise it would soon get too hot and bubble up.

[Italiano]

Williams announced they'll use their classic blue livery in testing...it's something.

[Holm86]

Williams announced they'll use their classic blue livery in testing...it's something.

Yes. And it seems that Williams will be using the blue as a testing livery with rumors of Martini becoming their main sponsor.