Recent rules changes have conspired to give us a very strange-looking generation of F1 cars.

The aerodynamic changes introduced in 2009, followed by the reduction in nose height brought in this year, has led to creations which run the gamut from awkward to outright ugly.

Maximum-width front wings, plus disproportionately narrow rear wings, plus stepped noses equals some decidedly unattractive cars.

“The undoubted ugliness of 90% of the 2012 F1 cars just means it’s more of a challenge to make them look good in pictures,” lamented photographer Darren Heath on Twitter recently.

Happily the FIA is planning to tweak the rules in the future: reducing the height of the front bulkhead to do away with the steps, and reducing the width of the front wings.

So how could the improved generation of 2012 cars look? It’s over to graphic designer Jeremy Hancox who’s already posted some excellent designs in the forum.

First up Jeremy tackles one of the least attractive cars on the grid. Ferrari told us the F2012 would look pretty when it won a race. It turns out they were wrong – what it really needs is a break from those restrictive 2012 rules.

Note that these designs don’t obey the proposed new technical rules to the letter – they’re just intended to show how the current cars would look if the key offending passages of the rules were tweaked.

In short: narrower front wings, lower and wider rear wings, and no stepped noses. Here’s how they look.

‘Fixed’ Ferrari F2012

View the original car:

Improving the liveries

Jeremy also turned his attention to some of the cars’ liveries – have a look at these three re-skinned racers:

Sauber C31

Sauber’s current livery is one of the most unfathomable on the grid. Jeremy replaced the mishmash of black and white with a more cohesive black and blue treatment.

View the original car:

Williams FW34

With the Williams, Jeremy moves the design closer to the retro style already aped by the current car.

View the original car:

Ferrari F2012

Finally we turn our attention back to the Ferrari. Here Jeremy does away with the white in favour of black wings with a splash of yellow which suits the soft Pirellis very nicely.

View the original car:

Share your thoughts on Jeremy’s designs in the comments. You can also contact him via his website.

If you want to post your own designs, head over to this thread in the forum where you can embed images of your own via Flickr.

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