Regular readers may have noticed that I haven’t written about Formula 1 for a while. That’s because there is none of it around at the moment! Yes, it is the close season. For the motor racing fan at winter there are three options:
- Keep yourself occupied with the DVD of last season’s highlights
- Watch A1 GP (not an option for me because I don’t have Sky)
- Feverishly keep track of latest winter testing and car launch news
So, keeping track of car launches it is then! On Friday Toyota launched their new car. Today it was Ferrari’s turn (does anybody else find it odd that they’ve done this on a Sunday?). And oh my goodness. Ferrari’s new car is so ugly! Ferrari have banned photographers from being close to the car yet — presumably because they are so embarrassed by the car’s ugliness.
Tobacco advertising is, of course, now banned. While most tobacco companies have bowed gracefully out of the sport, Philip Morris and Ferrari haven’t. In fact, if anything, they have upped the ante. The ‘Marlboro’ brand may not appear on the car, but an ugly “barcode”-style logo (which apparently does remind people of Marlboro!) will take prominence. You can see this in the photograph above on the rear wing, the front wing and on the nose towards the cockpit.
Furthermore, the shade of red is said to have moved even further away from Ferrari’s traditional rosso corsa colour towards something more like the washed-out bright red of Marlboro.
Add to this the rumours that Marlboro are considering putting an illustration of the Ferrari car on their cigarette packets, does it seem as though Philip Morris are keeping to the tobacco ban? Maybe they are keeping to the letter, but undoubtedly not to the spirit.
Ferrari aren’t the only team with tweaks to their livery rumoured for this year. The tobacco ban has meant that Renault lost its title sponsor, Mild Seven. Many were hoping that this would lead to the team reverting to its traditional yellow, which has been a secondary colour in recent years. But recent ‘spy’ photos unfortunately suggest that they will run with a dark blue next year.
Honda are also said to be considering a livery change in the wake of the loss of their sponsor, British American Tobacco. They to promote their supposed green credentials. I think this would be a massive mistake. The happy coincidence was that the Lucky Strike livery was almost identical to Honda’s traditional colours! But now that Lucky Strike have gone, Honda have decided to move to different, non-traditional colours.
As I said in a comment at BlogF1, do you remember the amazing ‘Impossible Dream’ advert for Honda? Can you imagine if the Formula 1 car in that was green? It would have ruined the entire advert.
Aside from the wrong colour, I think the livery (as a whole) is an improvement over the recent versions. There is more red (albeit the wrong red), and I am pleased Ferrari have moved away from white and black, and concentrated on, well, red. I also think it is pretty sexy and a much needed evolution over the F2007’s predecessors. Ferrari are experiencing change, and the car is only the half of it.
By-the-way, haven’t swung by in a little while. What was once very white is now very dark. But it looks good, none-the-less! 😉 But what’s with the pink?
Oh, and the hot rumour is Renault will run with Yellow (Renault), Orange (ING), White and Black (Who knows?). Check out the transporters in the ‘spy’ images…
…They kinda look like that ’70s lino my grandma had in her kitchen.
I think you mean, “What’s wrong with the pink?” 😀
By the way, I should point out that I quite like the fact that the white and black has gone (although it threw me a bit at first!). But I don’t think I can handle seeing that awful “barcode” very much. And why is the Fiat logo so tall?
I disagreed with the Honda advert as soon as a St George’s was suddenly attached to every featuring vehicle around the time of the world cup. We have TV in other reaches of Britain too…and Hondas.
I hadn’t noticed the stretched FIAT logo. Maybe the company is changing their branding slightly, or it could be the crappy photo – some of them were quite distorted.
I think I prefer this version of the barcode over previous attempts (b+w as you say). It blends in with the car better – which may not be a good thing for smokers trying to quit, but I think that’s a load of baloney anyway.
This is a usual case of Ferrari "bending" the rules to suit themselves.
The car itself looks good but when coupled with the livery looks ugly. What makes
it even worse is when you see the
drivers uniforms – they look like they should be in Nascar or something.
With regards, to Renault I agree with Ollie – it fits in with what I’ve heard.
Let’s be honest though the best looking car of the year so far is the McLaren
– although the less said about the uniforms and haircuts the better.This is a
usual case of Ferrari "bending" the rules to suit themselves. The car
itself looks good but when coupled with the livery looks ugly. What makes it even
worse is when you see the drivers uniforms – they look like they should be in
Nascar or something.
With regards, to Renault I agree with Ollie – it fits in with what I’ve heard.
Let’s be honest though the best looking car of the year so far is the McLaren,
it looks far better with the proper red of Vodafone rather than that off red of
Emirates – although the less said about the uniforms
and haircuts the better.
[…] rumours that Honda was thinking of changing its livery first surfaced I was a little bit disappointed. Honda were in a unique position, where the colours of their tobacco sponsor coincidentally matched […]