Photo Credit: Williams Racing
Formula 1 chiefs believe that F1 liveries must be distinguishable from 2025, amid concerns that rival teams look too similar in the 2024 season.
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Early season feedback and Television images have highlighted difficulty in differentiating cars from various angles. With many teams running mostly carbon fibre liveries.
The Red Bull, Williams, Aston Martin and Mercedes F1 liveries often appear indistinguishable from particular viewpoints at high speed. This problem has worsened as teams reduce painted areas on their cars to save weight. It is believed that increasing the prominence of unpainted black carbon across all cars is not the answer.
According to Motorsport.com, discussions have begun with teams about addressing the situation for next year. Greater diversity on the grid through a lack of cars running similar colours is essential.
While the FIA and FOM want to address the issue, they do not want to impose strict regulations.
Nikolas Tombazis, the FIA’s head of single-seater matters, stated that the topic has been tabled for further discussion at the next F1 Commission meeting. “As always in F1, it is a bit more complicated than maybe meets the eye,” Tombazis told Motorsport.com.
“We do want cars to be distinguishable”
Tombazis believes that a collaborative process between the teams, rather than imposing new rules, is the best way to address the situation. “We need to get to some process where teams in some way or other communicate with each other and say: ‘Well, if your car is blue here, mine will not be blue there.’ Or something like that.
“But how exactly that process would work [remains to be seen]. It’s not a regulatory process. We don’t want to be making regulations about liveries as the FIA, but we do want cars to be distinguishable.”
A return of the Iconic Helmets?
Distinguishing F1 liveries from different teams is not the only issue. It has become harder to tell drivers in the same team apart. With helmet designs often hidden by the halo, recognising individual drivers is not as easy as it used to be.
Currently, the only way to determine between two cars in the same team is through a colour flash on their onboard cameras.
F1 must evaluate better ways for fans to recognise each driver in the same team. Tombazis added, “It used to be, of course, drivers had more recognisable helmets in the olden days because there were simpler designs.
“Now there is a change of regulations and they’ve got all these funny shades, plus you don’t see the helmet anyway because of the halo.
“We need to find some way to make people be able to know if it is Russell or Hamilton, but also to be able to easily distinguish the cars.”
Last year, Hamilton and Russell had their driver numbers coloured on the sides of their cars. Russell with neon blue and Hamilton with neon yellow.
Similarly, Ferrari did the same although not as effectively. Leclerc having a white number and Sainz running a yellow number. Detail like these made it easier to quickly spot the different drivers.
While the FIA does not want to form new rules, they do believe the teams must take care of this themselves. It is for the betterment of F1 after all.
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