McLaren tipped to reveal new ‘grey’ livery at next race

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In the round-up: McLaren are rumoured to be planning a change to their livery for the next round of the championship in Spain.

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McLaren to debut new livery in Spain (Adam Cooper's F1 Blog)

"It’s understood that the new version could be described as ‘shades of grey,’ with no chrome or silver."

Ferrari: How they became 2015 F1 title contenders (BBC)

"The Mercedes teams believe the Ferrari engine is now effectively their equal."

Haas will not be Ferrari 'B-team' (Autosport)

"(The goal is) to be respectable,

Honda yet to confirm plan for tokens (F1i)

"Of course we will use them in-season, but right now we don’t have any actual schedule."

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Comment of the day

A historical context for McLaren’s troubled reunion with Honda:

The McLaren-Honda situation reminds me of Honda’s first turbo engine exploits with Williams. That 1984 car was a complete nightmare and blew up more often than any engine I’ve seen (well, maybe this year’s Renault is running it close). The one win it did get was in Dallas and that was probably due to the fact that the circuit was falling apart so much it became a dirt track enabling Keke Rosberg to shine.

Everyone pressed on and by the time everything was sorted out by late 1985 they had a car that dominated the latter part of that season and the next two. Ron Dennis has staked his reputation on this entire enterprise and won’t rest until he has achieved his stated aim. I, for one, am indeed expecting the race wins to come… eventually.
Graham (@guitargraham)

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91 comments on “McLaren tipped to reveal new ‘grey’ livery at next race”

  1. Graham (@guitargraham)
    3rd May 2015, 0:19

    yeah, grey! thats so exciting

    1. Graham (@guitargraham)
      3rd May 2015, 0:55

      btw ,Thanks for my very first COTD :)

    2. Like Force India and Sauber 2014. Esteemed company.

    3. good Cotd @guitargraham! Yeah, seems Ron Dennis is persuing 50 shades of gray. Shame the season so far has delivered closer to what the movie was like (not quite good enough a delivery) than the success of the book.

      Really exciting, isn’t it. Almost makes me think (hope?) the Ron must be playing a practical joke on all of us here.

      1. @bascb, Ron just wants his cars to be unnoticed at the back.

    4. Read somewhere that the black and grey colours are beter for advertising. But since Mclaren does not have much of that on the car, why…

  2. OH NO MCLAREN MAN! F1 IS FACING A CRISIS! THE PEOPLE SAY IT’S BECOME MONOCHROME, UNDISTINGUISHED AND BORING WHAT EVER SHALL WE DO!

    We’ll…

    We’ll add more grey.

    1. This is all the F1 news there is? Sport is dying…or is dead…

  3. Uzair Syed (@ultimateuzair)
    3rd May 2015, 0:46

    Why does it have to be dull colours such as grey or silver or black or chrome? Get some more exciting colours on that McLaren!

    1. Because Ron Dennis is a dull man

      1. So that orange Honda Indycar in yesterday’s round up will look more McLaren Honda than the actual McLaren Honda!? :-/

        1. @ivz Haha, love this comment.

      2. You just reminded me of a brief blurb on the offonf1 site from 2012, right after McLaren’s spectacular fail on Hamilton’s pitstop(s) discussing the problem:

        Ron Dennis has ordered a top-level enquiry after McLaren’s rear wheel change catastrophe at Bahrain. In a season that could be very tight on points, Lewis Hamilton lost several thanks to two disastrous pit-stops that dropped him at least three places. The core of the issue is the heat difference between the McLaren’s titanium rear axle and the aluminium nuts. While other teams use heavier steel nuts, McLaren try to save weight with aluminium. However the search is now on to find a compromise solution.

        A McLaren spokesman said: “if anybody’s going to have perfect nuts, it’s Ron. And they’ll be painted grey.”

        1. Too much information!

          I suppose bright orange nuts would be more worrying mind.

    2. Although most posters here are calling for “exciting” colours this goes against current modern trends where understated tones with a splash of vivid colour are in vogue. White, black and silver production cars are what most people are choosing. I think a grey car with suitable profile highlights could look very classy.

  4. Paul (@frankjaeger)
    3rd May 2015, 0:50

    C’mon McLaren-Honda let’s do something bold, like Sauber and their retro blue + yellow. Let’s go orange!

    1. I think Bernie doesn’t let the teams make any significant changes mid season, no wonder it will still be gray

    2. Yes but the Sauber looks cheap and tacky, last years colour scheme was a much nicer looking car. Also it’s only there because of sponsorship. Not to make the grid brighter.

      I personally don’t understand where the great need to start painting cars bright colours has come from. I don’t think the grid looks dull and boring, I don’t see what painting a Mclaren orange would add, yes it’s a piece of history but history is history, sometimes they need to look to the future.

      For me it doesn’t have to be bright to be beautiful. Just my opinion of course.

    3. @frankjaeger What about white, black and red/orange? Basically, just replacing the chrome with white rather than grey. Their team wear has been white, black and grey? Just replace the grey with the red/orange.. it nods to the original McLaren ‘Honda’ in Grand Prix (1966), if they don’t want to go with pure Red/Orange & White which would recall the glory days of the 80s (and also mesh well with Honda’s Japanese racing colours).

  5. An unremarkable livery for an unremarkable team. That makes sense to me.

  6. For a team that will have had about 50 shades of grey on their car by the end of the season, they are sure putting their drivers through some sort of cruel sadomasochistic punishment.

    1. @walsh-f1 Could that be the new sponsor? :P

  7. Daniel (@dstaplet13)
    3rd May 2015, 1:44

    So Ron you don’t know when it will happen, could be tomorrow or could be 5000 years from now….Good to know -;)

  8. I have high hopes for the Haas F1 outfit, they seem to be doing everything “right”.

    Connect yourself to an established constructor. Be cost efficient. Have a forward base in an established F1 location. Get enough attention before the actual launch.

    It has the makings of a constructor that knows what they’re doing.

    1. They also seem to be doing things right with their livery, I always liked yellow F1 cars – they will add some welcome colour to the current grid!

      1. @polo how do you know it’ll be yellow?

        1. In this very same Autosport article Haas team principal Gunther Steiner says that

          The cars will not just be yellow Ferraris, because the bodywork will be different and the chassis is different.

          1. @lepondo Interesting, I thought they might try and make it Red, White & Blue..

          2. @beejis60 @sato113 Yeah, as @lepondo said, it was in the Autosport article. Actually, I seem to recall Haas mentioning a yellow livery as far back as mid-2014 – he was asked what colour livery he would like and he mentioned yellow as being one of the main candidates. He has mentioned the yellow again a few times since then, so it seems like he has made a decision on the livery for now.

        2. Who’s the main sponsor? That probably directs the colour scheme. If Ferrari engine implies Shell fuel/lube then yellow is no surprise.

  9. Andrew Benson you’ve got it very wrong for a change… The Ferrari PU is still a little off the Merc. You don’t need to go to0 much into details when you look at the finishing results of the Ferrari powered cars until this moment and its correlation to each track power ratings. Ferrari has won on the track with the lowest power rating and as a whole it ferrari in terms of form it faired worst at Bahrain which as of yet the highest track on the power rating chart.

    1. I would say Ferrari’s performance relative to Mercedes so far this season goes in this order, from best to worst (in my opinion): Malaysia > Bahrain > China > Australia.
      Ferrari actually had really good pace in Bahrain, they were faster than Merc on long-runs in practice which is what pushed Mercedes to use a set-up that was very marginal on the brakes to maximise performance – resulting in Merc’s brake-by-wire failures. Ferrari had very good pace on the medium tyre in Bahrain, unlikes China where they fell away after they switched from soft to mediums.
      Also, while I would agree that Merc’s PU is still likely a bit better than Ferrari’s, Ferrari and Sauber have frequently been very high up in the speed traps, even ahead of Williams – who used to top the times frequently last year – several times, and always ahead of the seemingly high-drag high-downforce (RB-esque) works Mercedes. Hard to know how much the straight-line speed of the Ferrari cars is due to chassis philosophies/set-up compromises, but certainly suggests that their PU is very close to Merc’s.

      1. I thought it was too difficult for Ferrari and Renault to change their engine layout to a split turbo? If so, how can Ferrari be close to Mercedes?

        1. @ivz
          Ferrari were actually splitting the turbo and the compressor last year, their solution wasn’t as aggressive and efficient as the Mercedes solution but it only needed some adjustments to make it work, Renault on the other hand cannot afford to split the turbo and the compressor because simply they will run out of tokens.

        2. I feel like this year’s Ferrari PU is closer to what the 2014 engine should have been…

          I recall one of the engine chiefs who was fired in 2014 mentioning to the media that he was angry that the engine team had been blamed so heavily for the 2014 performance – he said that they could have easily produced a much better PU, one much closer to Mercedes’, but they were asked to compromise the PU in several aspects (which had a negative impact on horsepower, efficiency etc.) for aerodynamic benefits. This obviously didn’t pay off at all. This explains Ferrari’s huge jump on the engine side in 2015 – reverting these compromises, in addition to the developments made over the winter, has allowed for a huge jump forward.
          Renault, on the other hand, didn’t have the luxury of simply reverting some compromises to bring it closer to Mercedes – in fact, their 2014 PU was quite unfriendly towards aerodynamics due to its layout and cooling requirements necessitating fairly wide sidepods. Renault’s 2014 PU was quite simply just underpowered and unreliable, and it will be difficult for them to just copy Mercedes any time soon – it took Mercedes 2 years of research to perfect the split-turbo approach, as it requires the shaft connecting the turbine to the compressor to have absolutely zero flex, as the even slightest bit of flex could internally damage and wreck the engine.

    2. According to James Allen, the gap is nearly 0 in RACES as well.

  10. 10 comments about a livery that hasn’t been seen yet based on what Adam Copper says? Please no more 3wk breaks. I agree with COTD. Honda will be successful, Mclaren not so sure. Honda will use their token’s when needed and Mclaren will use their tokens at the casino. I’m looking forward to seeing the Haas cars and teams join the grid almost as much as I was looking forward to reading the BBC article until I realized it was written by Benson. Pacman to beat Mayweather

    1. ColdFly F1 (@)
      3rd May 2015, 7:29

      I decided to read the full Cooper article – @funkyf1.

      That’s a couple of minutes I will never get back!

      1. @coldfly Lucky you didn’t read the Benson one as well then :P

        1. I read both… I hate the BBC F1 coverage so much, they don’t put enough money/effort into their coverage to appeal to a large audience, yet they never have any technical insight into the cars at all. I can’t remember the last time I read a BBC F1 article and came away with more technical insight into the cars. The best I can remember was their “all aboard the power train” article at the beginning of 2014, but that was just a rehash of all the information already out there anyway.

    2. @guitargraham COTD – the question now is how long can Alonso and Button stick around? 3 or 4 more years? Schumacher retired again before Mercedes came good. If they do the same, McLaren could be finally bringing in Magnussen and Vandoorne to a winning car. Or even de Vries/Barnicoat by that time..

      @funkyf1 They insist their 2013/14 niggles are behind them… now lets hope Honda/Renault catch up a bit with their extra tokens. For Renault, it’s more like a simple delay in development.

  11. pastaman (@)
    3rd May 2015, 3:03

    Damn, I was liking the black sidepods with the shiny flecks. Looked great when the light hit it just right!

  12. RP (@slotopen)
    3rd May 2015, 3:05

    The “How Ferrari became contenders “”article glosses over the interesting technical details.

    For instance, how did they “compromise the engine’s performance because of restrictions imposed on packaging”

    Is there a good place to read about these detsils?

    1. I believe that Benson would be taking information from articles that the Italian publication, Autosprint, produced last year.

      Essentially, the claims they made were that Ferrari compromised the packaging of the cooling system – especially the oil radiators and the intercooler – in order to minimise the size of the sidepods, with the aim of trying to recover the slight loss in power due to a reduction in the efficiency of the cooling systems by improving the airflow over the floor area, thereby increasing rear downforce.

      In addition to this, it seems that Ferrari opted for a slightly conservative turbocharger design that was intended to be relatively compact, in order to minimise the size of the upper engine cover, and to minimise the turbo lag – however, this came with the compromise that Ferrari could only harvest a very limited amount of waste energy from the turbocharger.

      That was part of the reason why, last year, the Ferrari powered cars often could not do two quick laps back to back – they could not recharge their batteries fully over a single lap, and therefore would often have to accumulate energy over multiple laps in order to utilise the full potential of their system.

      This year, Ferrari’s development work seems to have been predominantly in improving the efficiency of their energy recovery systems, as well as working on the cooling systems in order to maximise its efficiency.

      Although Ferrari can’t quite match the ultimate peak power output of the Mercedes engine, it is thought that Ferrari can run their powertrain package at full power over the entire race distance.

      Mercedes, by contrast, probably do still have a slight power advantage in qualifying trim – hence the performance gap in qualifying, plus why Williams tend to close up a little on Ferrari in qualifying – but, during the races, they then have to run in a slightly more conservative setting in order to manage their fuel allowance – Motorsport magazine reckons that their fuel consumption is about 3% higher than in 2014.

  13. In terms of the livery, I don’t think we’ll see wholesale change to the livery for McLaren, I wouldn’t be surprised if we see exactly the same design, except where there is silver, it will be changed to grey. There is a lot of speculation right now, but I think this is not from a “new sponsor” point of view, but more of a way of moving itself away from the Mercedes colour scheme that they’ve run since the late 90’s.

    1. Its bound to be a bit of a letdown for “changes” of the livery @dragoll, much like the originally announce “different livery” failed to give us anything exciting

  14. Is Benson the single worst F1 journalist out there? There’s strong competition for the title but I think he very well could be.

    Rosberg has two second and two third places so far this season, which is an average position of 2.5. But the average of the best result of the Ferrari drivers at each race is slightly better, at 2.25.

    Which suggests that a fair chunk of Mercedes’ overall advantage so far this year is in Hamilton himself.

    Back when Vettel was winning while Webber finished fourth or fifth, I don’t recall ole Benson suggesting that a fair chunk of the RB advantage was in Vettel himself.

    Alonso came agonisingly close to winning the title with Ferrari in both 2010 and 2012

    It would not be a Benson article if the above sentence, or some minor variation on it, did not appear at least once.

    How have Ferrari improved?

    You’ll be amazed to hear the answer is: More power and a better handling chassis. Really, the man gets paid to write these columns?

    1. Agreed, that article in particular is a bit desperate.

    2. In my opinion, there are only 10-20 journalists who are better than Benson in the English world

      1. less than 10, I think.

      2. For me, all that matters is that I have Peter Windsor available for free on YouTube. He really is the best source of F1 insight in my opinion, especially his technical insights with Scarbs.

    3. The fact of the matter is, when you take Hamilton out of the equation it is clear that Nico is under threat from the Ferraris. Same thing applies to Webber vs Vettel, Vettel was able to exploit the blown gases than better than Mark and hence he was the difference as well (but certainly Vettel was not the difference in 2010, they were pretty evenly matched). I see your point ie there seems to be no consistency but one cannot deny the class that Hamilton is showing this season. He is a more complete driver now than the 07-’12 Lewis IMO. Vettel on the other hand is also showing that he is class, winning against the mighty Mercs and showing that his race management skills are probably second to none when in clean air.

      1. Personally I think RAI has been the more impressive driver at Ferrari this season so far. Vettel on the other hand, while he drove very well in Malaysia he wasn’t under pressure, a saftey car, traffic and bad strategy from Mercedes saw to that. Compare that to China where RAI was catching him and Bahrain where he was under pressure and he simply didn’t perform. Bahrain was actually a very scrappy race for Vettel and if Ferrari had any pressure from behind it could have been worse. Kind of like last year where at certain races when Mercedes didn’t perform as well as they could or had issues there was somebody there to make them pay for that mistake.

        I will be interested to see, If RAI can sort himself out in qually and not have the bad luck he has had, how VET will compare then. It’s easy to chase a car infront when there is no pressure from behind and lets face it, Ferrari aren’t pressured from behind. Williams are quite a way back. If you look at when Vettel undercut ROS, and pressure was applied those cracks began to show. Which is also what I think is happening with ROS at Mercedes, last year their advantage meant that he was rarely challenged from behind unless from his teammate and he cracked then. I will stand by what I said last year, that if a team caught up to Mercedes then ROS will suffer more than HAM, which so far has proven to be pretty true.

        1. I agree with your sentiments mate. I don’t think Vettel excels in wheel to wheel battles as Alonso, Hamilton or even Ricciardo does, but that’s not to say he is not a good driver. Still, isn’t it ironic. Nico was crying for competition because he thought that would mean a closer battle between himself and Lewis. But anyone knowledgeable about F1 knew that would disadvantage Nico more than Lewis and Nico is having to choke on his words of ‘closer competition’.

          The Ferrari battle is interesting. I have no doubts Vettel will show Kimi in qualy because Seb has phenomenal 1 lap pace and that has never been Kimi’s forte. However in the races there is no doubt in the races the roles are much different and I would have to agree with you- so far, Kimi has had better race pace than Vettel at least in the last 3 races. If you go through the FIA timing lap charts on FIA.com and compare Kimi vs Vettel, Kimi is ahead in race pace. Of course some of that will be down to clean air and how the race is panning out, but even in FP sessions Raikkonen just seems to have the edge on the long runs. IMO Bahrain was the first time we saw Kimi have a clean weekend and he showed Seb and Nico a clean pair of heels.

          Now to bring Alonso into the equation…. Given how Kimi was manhandled by him and how Seb is doing anything but, you have to ask the question of who is the better driver between the two. Personally I think Alonso is better than Seb as an all round driver, but of course Kimi wasn’t happy with the Ferrari last season some will say. But that said surely adaptation is what sets aside great drivers from very good drivers.

          1. Kimi has had better race pace than Vettel at least in the last 3 races.

            Not in Malaysia, and even in China, Raikkonen lost a lot of time in the middle of the race, when Vettel was actually near the Mercs, so even that one is debatable.

          2. If you go through the FIA timing lap charts on FIA.com and compare Kimi vs Vettel, Kimi is ahead in race pace.

            What exactly is this “race pace” you speak of? It’s curious that a driver who sets slower out-right fastest lap times than another driver and who also finishes the race behind that other driver can be claimed to have superior “race pace”.

            surely adaptation is what sets aside great drivers from very good drivers.

            Then surely, if Alonso was truly a great driver, he could have adapted to a car designed for Kimi (as Vettel has done) instead of expecting Kimi to adapt to a car designed for Alonso?

          3. @RM you make no sense. Why would Alonso need to adapt to a car made for KImi?? They were both in the same car last season and with all it’s flaws Alonso adapted around the shortfalls of last year’s Ferrari better. “What is this long run pace”… Seriously? Okay I’ll dumb it down for you then. Kimi’s long run pace in Malaysia and particularly Bahrain was quicker than Vettel’s as is evidenced by the timing screens. ” another driver and who also finishes the race behind that other driver can be claimed to have superior “race pace”’. Are you being for real? Let’s take Malaysia for example. Kimi had a puncture and that compromised his race. That’s how. You seem to forget that factors beyond a driver’s control can compromise a his race. Surely you are not that ignorant?

        2. Personally I think RAI has been the more impressive driver at Ferrari this season so far.

          That’s rather comical, given that he’s been beaten by Vettel four times out of four in qualifying and three times out of four in the race.

          If RAI can sort himself out in qually and not have the bad luck he has had

          He has not had any “bad luck”.

          1. You are beginning to sound like a Fan-boy mate. Kimi was caught out by the rain in Malaysia in qualy in Malaysia. Is that his fault? In Australia he had an appalling pitstop that ended the race. That’s his fault? In Malaysia he was dropped to the back of the field because of the puncture which of course compromised his race too. Is that also his fault? Open your eyes pal. As I said above I have no doubts that Seb has the legs on Kimi in qualy but certainly in the races it’s a different matter. Given that Bahrain was Kimi’s 1st clean weekend I am surprised you want to attribute Vettel’s 3-1 score in the races to Vettel ‘outracing’ him. But hey I guess there are none so blind than those who do not want to see which renders this debate useless. You cannot view things from an impartial point of view when it comes to Vettel can you?

  15. CovertGiblets
    3rd May 2015, 5:54

    It’s all about cost. Remember that it’s not just the car that has the car colours, it’s everything, literally everything. The car, the garage setup, the motorhomes, the uniforms, marketing paraphernalia, right the way down to the business cards. The cost of changing all this to ‘orange’ would be astronomical, which is why Ron is saying this will only happen if a title sponsor is found because they will pay for the changes. Personally,

    I would love to see an orange McLaren out there, but in a time when teams are trying to save money it’s not going to happen.

  16. Levente (@leventebandi)
    3rd May 2015, 7:19

    Watched some good Le Mans footage from the past 10 years and it hit me:
    In the engine sound debate, are we the problem itself ? The fans ?
    Because frankly, in the past 10 years of Le Mans, the leading pack were made of turbodiesels, V4s, V6s… and there wasn’t that kind of debate and whining over engine sounds (which are pretty great if you ask me. The diesel audis are like spacecraft from a scifi movie).
    From the introduction of the new formula, even when a demo didn’t go public, an engine note didn’t hit the air, the fans were bashing the sound. Without even knowing a thing. Only it was about that the sound will be a really loud dull, high pitched, constant pitched noise.
    Now it’s too quiet ?

    1. Thank Bernie for that, he was the 1st to say the sound was awful and the crowds would stay away, naturally that started the promoters making the same claims in order to help Bernie get his way or force a reduction in the hosting fee, all this publicity between seasons when there was nothing else to report on convinced lots of fans that the deafening scream of the v8s was absolutely essential to their enjoyment of F1 and surprise, surprise they actually felt cheated when the new engines produced a different, less deafening sound.

      1. exactly. The “promotor”, in his official role, did a “great” job to get that topic started @hohum. Instead of doing what he should be doing – i.e. actualy trying to give the sport a better image and work on its popularity.

        1. @bascb, For Bernie getting his own way and stroking his ego is more important than money ( as long as he still has a couple of billion ).

          1. I do think that all his friends in the middle east might get upset about an Iranian GP. On the other hand, having the rumour out might get Quatar to up their bid, and then Bahrain to up theirs to keep Quatar from getting on the calendar @hohum!

  17. I don’t share the down in the mouth view of grey, especially until we see it. Any man knows if you buy a new suit with a great cut styled to match your business, then the right shade of grey can stand out.
    PS don’t forget, there are 50 shades of grey to choose from !

  18. I think that in order for teams to be easily distinguished from one another whilst they are on the track, the car of each team car should be presented in substantially the same livery at every event during a championship season.

  19. Back when Vettel was winning while Webber finished fourth or fifth, I don’t recall ole Benson suggesting that a fair chunk of the RB advantage was in Vettel himself.

    Agreed!
    And I also agree with your main point: he is the worst F1 writer I have seen. Either blatantly partial or stating the obvious.

    1. Michael Brown
      3rd May 2015, 18:12

      He also had something against Schumacher when he was still racing back in 2010-2012

  20. Grey is the feature colour of Mercedes, isn’t?

    1. Silver.

  21. It’s going to be interesting watching how Mercedes handle this Ferrari resurgence.

    Their advantage now is still very much on the level of Red Bull 2011 but I don’t have complete confidence in them managing it as well as they did.

  22. “Another factor is that Alonso – who out-qualified Raikkonen by more than 0.5secs on average and 16-3 overall – is no longer in the Ferrari. Vettel’s advantage over the Finn is just over half that so far. Where Alonso would be qualifying and racing this year’s Ferrari can only be a matter of speculation. ”

    God, Andrew Benson is such a tiresome Alonso fanboy. The Ferrari last season didn’t suit Kimi at all. Everyone knows that. Why don’t we look at McLaren this year, where Button is outqualifying Alonso; does that mean Button would have outqualified Alonso in the F14-T? I guess that can only be a ‘matter of speculation’. You can’t make straight comparisons over one season in one car.

    The guy is terrible. BBC need to ditch him ASAP.

  23. the ease of which rosberg passed the ferraris in the last race tells me Mercedes still have a power advantage.

    1. They have an “overtake” mode they can use to get extra power from the engine, plus the mighty DRS.

  24. So I guess the current McLaren livery is too exciting for their current car performance(!) Perhaps they are hoping if its grey it will merge into the tarmac and no-one will notice how slowly it is going or has simply stopped after the first four corners…

  25. georgeyboy352
    3rd May 2015, 16:36

    it seems like jensen is only there to back up Alonso the factthat ron never hardly mentions him says a lot for the team orders

  26. I think that what Steiner is saying about “Yellow Ferrari” is that in the past a lot of customer Ferrari F1 cars and GT cars were painted yellow.

    1. called “fly yellow” for some reason.

      1. HoHum, the later about 1976 production cars were “FLY” Yellow because of FLY Design Studios who came up with that color. Caliri was a Ferrari designer who started Fly Design Studios.
        The earlier, 60’s and 70’s yellow customer race cars are not Fly yellow.
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giacomo_Caliri

        1. Thanks for the history, later Fly yellow cars do look a little more vivid I guess but very similar and no doubt inspired by the earlier alternative Ferrari colour.

  27. More grey? That’s hard to imagine… but if they take away the red and make it similar to last year’s it will be better, though I’m not too sure removing the chrome will be a good move.

  28. If it’s a matte grey, that could look really sharp. Hmm.. is it possible to have a matte finish on an F1 car? Does it screw with airflow or anything?

    Anyways, I find it funny that so many people have such a strong opinion one way or another about the McLaren/Honda situation. Speculation is fine, but until they get close to the potential of the power unit, it’s all just wild guesses. It’s kind of like arguing about whether it’s going to rain 6 Sundays from now. Until it actually happens, we don’t really know, and your opinion on it doesn’t really make any difference!

  29. If the McLaren colours didn’t look dull enough already, they are considering a wholescale change to … the dullest colour of all! A boring colour for a dull, faded team. Dennis doesn’t understand the colour scheme speaks volumes about the attitude and dynamism of a team. What they are doing now won’t help them get a sponsor. Dennis needs to leave, and take his lap-dog Boullier with him.

  30. Ferrari have to improve more than this.

  31. The problem with Mclaren is that it wants to create a modern, brand color scheme. Orange is sincerely not a marketable car production color in the type of luxury/supercar segment. Its associated to the likes of Fast and Furious modders , japanese cars full of aftermarket cars. There’s a certain devalue of the brand by going by it. Yes, the original Bruce Mclaren cars were orange, bur so where some Early racing Ferraris.

    But going Grey is really not the answer. There are brands we audience already associate with certain Brands: Ferrari Red, Mercedes Grey, Lotus Black (Green or Yellow). Williams Blue and white.

    So Mclaren is in a delicate position. Their West colors were Iconic. That’s what they aimed for. The Red and White Colors were just too much associated with Marlboro. However, Red and White were and are, indeed, the colors most fans associate with Mclaren.

    You know, having been born and growing up in a place of Formula 3 tradition, there was a team that had a similar color scheme than Mclaren (basically Marlboro Colors). They recently reappeared to participate on the event, and their new livery is actually quite clever:

    http://www.premapowerteam.com/thumb.php?format=newsfull2&im=file/151014_090924_7217_SJM%20Theodore%20Racing.jpg

    Imagine this but instead of Gold, the black lines of Honda.

    What would this mean for the “Corporate” image of Mclaren? Probably a bit of a hassle. But it would free themselves of a “primary color”, just like Lamborghini, BMW (Yes, they go for White, blue and Red of the ” M” brand, but not limited to it).

    Anyway, still a fan. Just purchased a Honda CRZ to support Honda. Not the fastest car, but love the design!

  32. Grey? Maybe they’re hoping it’ll blend into the track and no one will notice how slow they are.

    They’re actually hinting at the old Red/White livery on Twitter so people think. I don’t though, can’t see that happening.

  33. Adrian Cheng (@raikkonenf12008)
    6th May 2015, 12:47

    sad…. wasnt mentioned as one of the birthday boys… :(

    i’ll just wait till next year.

    1. Adrian Cheng (@raikkonenf12008)
      6th May 2015, 12:52

      on the lighter note (or maybe not), am loving the new mclaren design. though i gotta say i missed the nice chrome livery they had during the 2006 season.

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