A day late and a dollar short this year unfortunately! While I’d started to design these a couple of weeks ago, time got the best of me and alas, I’ve missed the boat in terms of getting these out before the launches. However, I can assure you these designs were started well before the launches, and therefore haven’t taken inspiration from any of the recent launches. In any case, here are my F1 mockups for the 2018 season, in reverse alphabetical order for something different.

Williams

Every year I try to give the Williams a different look and feel, and while I went retro last year, I’ve gone with something (just about) substantially different for 2018. The Martini stripes are a lot more versatile than they look at first glance, and by simply placing them diagonally and against the grain of the car as opposed to the usual sweeping curves, it gives the livery a fresh new look.

However, I haven’t ignored the curves of the car entirely, sharply ending the stripes along the natural body lines on the nose, sidepod and rear wing endplate, as well as to leave a space for the Martini logo.

The actual 2018 car has followed the same theme of the last few years, they have added a large sweeping chunk of grey to fill up some white space. I wonder how it would have looked in navy blue.

Toro Rosso

This is one livery I would be very happy to see stay the same in 2018. The vibrant blue and red, and sleek silver were a welcome change after 11 years of bleh, so I’ve made sure to keep true to the 2017 colour scheme.

The simple silver bull stays, and the red line isn’t too different from the actual 2017 livery. The slight changes are that it ends at the sidepod and the second half is moved to the sidepod from above it, and that there is a bull pattern in a slightly darker red just for something different.

For the first time ever, don’t change, Toro Rosso!

Sauber

Everyone was excited by the possibilities opened by Sauber’s new partnership with Alfa Romeo. Red was on the cards with the launch of the partnership and the actual 2018 didn’t deviate much from this, but my heart was set on the beautiful metallic dark red.

I thought it was a waste to not expand that lovely colour further along the car, so took the liberty to place it all over the top, whilst keeping the sides mainly white. Extending the red along the top helps the flow of the car, where keeping it just on the engine cover gives the impression of a lack of care in the design (just seems a little boring in application in the link above). Some extra flashes of red line the larger red sections and helps fill up the car, despite the void that is the Sauber sidepod of late. I’ve also managed to keep this two tone, although realistically I should have added some blue, given that is Sauber’s team colour.

So glad to see this colour for the first time since Force India’s first winter test.

Renault

Keeping the Renault two-tone wasn’t the plan originally, but it ended up working quite well. The black and yellow contrast enough for logos to be perfectly visible and the combination is one that just about always works perfectly.

I’d attempted a mainly yellow car, but ended up with the opposite; a sleek black design with a fair amount of yellow piping. I’ve attempted to make good use of the newly introduced halo (which is universally regarded as hideous) with the piping. How teams make use of this feature with their 2018 liveries will be a key factor in overall looks.

Simple and not overly complicated designs executed well can be some of the most memorable.

Red Bull

Red Bull have unleashed a monster recently with the all blue ‘disruption’ livery which will almost certainly only be used in winter testing. Realistically, we’ll be seeing the navy blue and red for the 2018 season, and I’ve daringly avoided yellow too where possible. I’ve taken a chapter from the new Toro Rosso book in doing so, keeping the bull and logo super clean in red only, where the yellow outline almost looked out of place in 2017 in comparison to the rest of the livery.

The other elements of the design, being the red lines along the body, are slightly thicker and are cut off at an angle. There are also additional lines, underlining the Red Bull logo, as well as on the wing end plates.

Mercedes

Mercedes always presents a challenge, in that I can never seem to make a good looking silver livery. Every single time it ends up looking plain and boring, so I go to colour extremes. As I did last year, and the year before, I’ve piled on the black, as it adds some interest to what really is a bit of a dull colour in silver.

I’ve kept true to Mercedes’ love for the airbrush gradient application of colour with the turquoise on silver, whilst keeping the edges between the black and turquoise sharp along the sidepod and nose lines of the car. There’s also a subtle black section along the bottom of the car, slightly reducing the amount of silver used, whilst accentuating the natural curves of the car.

The black also helps many of the logos pop out to the viewer, where they stand out less on the silver. Plain black also looks better than the dirty looking airbrushed black on the engine cover in recent years.

McLaren

This is probably the car I’ve had the most frustration with in terms of design. I believe McLaren understand that the strong orange livery in 2017 wasn’t very well received, so perhaps in hope, I’ve gone with papaya orange that everyone rightfully rages about and wishes to see in 2018.

The design is rather plain as the papaya orange is surprisingly difficult to complement with other colours. I’ve gone with black instead of the blue used in IndyCar as that was more a Indy throwback, but kept it to a minimum, with flashes on the halo, airbox, very rear of the engine cover and wing end plates.

Again, not in love with this by any means, but am sure McLaren will want to move on from their Honda disaster with a turn in the right livery colour direction.

Haas

This design is seemingly irrelevant now as I’d started it back when the Maserati Haas rumour were lingering. Either way, I’ve followed the main Haas theme in splitting the colours half way up the sidepod, but in this instance, half charcoal grey and half blue.

The blue adds a bit of colour to what has was a very dull affair last year, with the white wing end plates especially opening the car up slightly. The white flashes act as a partial separation of the blue and grey, with some extra white sections wholly in the blue on the engine cover and rear of the sidepod. All white sections bordered on one edge with a red pinstripe.

A shame that this rumour never turned out to be true, but at least we’re in for less grey in 2018.

Force India

Or is it FORCE F1? Either way, the pink panther has also been very tough to design. I attempted using just two shades of pink which didn’t turn out very well, and ended up with just pink and black, this time with a vapourwave (quite a stretch, I know) feel.

The four sections of angular lines work in layers, and use odd shapes to fill up sections of the car without logos. They both create a feeling of unease, jutting against the grain, but also a sense of calm, cutting along the cars curves, especially on the nose section. The black wings work well against the largely bright pink car.

Ferrari

Finally, Ferrari, in ditching Santander, have opened us up to the hope of getting rid of the majority of white on the car and reintroducing black as the secondary colour. This paired with the removal of the suspiciously Marlboro looking Scuderia logo from online media channels means we may even have an attractive engine cover too.

I have gone with some more black, mainly on the engine cover and wing end plates, but also along the bottom of the car. Flashes too have been added on both ends of the halo, as well as the tip of the nosecone.

I don’t know how Ferrari get away with it year after year, perhaps we get used to it very quickly, but their logo arrangement on the sidepod is quite jarring and makes designing a complete and beautiful livery very difficult. Red, white, brown and yellows of different hues is a bit of a nightmare. They’ve been doing it for years but somehow, it never specifically receives much negative feedback. Perhaps there will be more hope next year.

So they were my mockups for the 2018 Formula 1 season. Any in particular that you liked, or perhaps didn’t? Do you feel you have any improvements of your own? Let me know below!