F1: Cars More Easily Distinguished and Better Looking at the Same Time?

[Chris]

For a long time now, Formula One has made half-arsed proposals to make distinguishing which driver is which more easy, but a UK Motorsport graphics designer may have the best idea yet.

At the present moment in time, there are three things that distinguish an F1 driver from his teammate: 1) his helmet, 2) the colour of his T-Cam, and 3) the number on his car. All of which are not terribly easy to see when the cars are travelling at racing speeds. Sure, for some of our more avid F1 fans, telling the cars apart simply by looking at the driver's helmet or T-Cam can suffice, but even for someone like myself who will happily get up at three in the morning simply to watch a practice session live and will actively cancel social engagements if it means being able to see an F1 session, it can be difficult at times.

Various decision making bodies have tossed ideas around as to how the sport can make telling who's who more easy, like IndyCar-style LED lights on the sides, but none of these things have ever materialised into anything. But what if you could make the cars instantly recognisable, AND better looking at the same time?

Enter Tim Holmes, a motorsport graphic designer. Tim looks to have come up with a quite frankly brilliant idea of killing those two birds with one stone by applying the driver's helmet design and colour scheme to their entire car. The results are astonishingly beautiful.



What do you think of the idea of having cars painted in their driver's helmet scheme rather than both being identical? Should the sport look seriously at adopting such a thing?

 

[Wedge]

Nico's car looks awesome. Always liked the minimalist approach and colors of his helmet. About the others... not so much. These designs went a bit too far.

Sometimes I agree it's hard to distinguish if you're seeing Alonso or Button depending on the camera angle and how fast the image is shown. You gotta look for the helmet + number. A little bit of driver characterization on the car would be nice to easily distinguish, but the team and sponsors colors should still be majority.

 

[Eugene Abramoff]

That is indeed a very cool idea, great designs, well applied to the cars. Although I don't think Ferrari would appreciate, if their cars weren't red, and I don't think Silver Arrow can be anything, but silver. I do appreciate the tradition of "color to country" designation, that some of the older players had been carrying for decades, some for over a century now. Still more personalized designs would be nice.

 

[James Cook]

They look really cool and I would be in favour of more colourful, attractive F1 cars.

But there would need to be a compromise between the driver's personal identity and that of the major sponsors of each team (and driver) who pay large sums of money to have their corporate branding and colours take prominence on the cars.

 

[Aki Korhonen]

bad idea. pretend that kimis helmet is like finnish flag white/blue and he is driving ferrari so idont think that ferrari wants car look like finnish flag and not like ferrari. no no no

 

[xnorb]

This doesn't make any sense.
If you know the helmet design, then you don't need that design on the whole car to know who's driving it. If you don't know the helmet design, then you wouldn't know who's who anyways.

It would make things worse as you wouldn't be able to tell teams apart.

And in the end: Does it even matter?
Is even anybody watching F1 races without commentary?

But without any doubt some very nice liveries there

 

[kedy89]

That would've been fun during Vettel's "I change my helmet design every session" time

Don't really like it. Drivers having to stick to their helmet design throughout the season was a first step, if they want to do more make numbers on the rearwing endplates mandatory.

 

[Kaygeeoh]

If only there was a real world TAB you could press to have driver names hover over the car

 

[kmanitou81]

If only there was a real world TAB you could press to have driver names hover over the car

You can bind it in the .ini file.

 

[fortyfivekev]

Some nice skins there, probably better suited to simracing than the real thing though. It's coming to something when drivers have more sponsors on their helmets than there are on the rest of the car.

 

[Chris]

If only there was a real world TAB you could press to have driver names hover over the car

MotoGP do a reasonable job ahah

 

[Robert_S]

Senna's is the best

 

[Jimlaad43]

When the Halo and/or other cockpit devices come in, they need to be governed in the same colours as the T-Cam to make the drivers more easily distinguishable. Have the number where the Claro logo is on this car.

 

[Phoenix77]

If they want to do more make numbers on the rearwing endplates mandatory.

I totally agree with that, have drivers country flag / driver number on the rear wing end plates. Problem solved... Nice and big, nice and clear!

 

[Reiche]

Is even anybody watching F1 races without commentary?

Depending on the track, a few ten thousands to.. what did Mexico claim? 360,000?

Drivers having to stick to their helmet design throughout the season was a first step, if they want to do more make numbers on the rearwing endplates mandatory.

I think he helmet-design approach is a nice one for the tv viewers.. But if you are at the track, that doesn't help too much IMO.. I was at Hockenheim and you had little chance to identify each car if there were like 4 in a row.. In the race, it was not that much of a problem because the position didn't change too often.. But in FP sessions and qualifying it was really hard.. I wish more teams would put the numbers prominently on their cars like especially Sauber and Haas do

 

[Frank]

It is a nice idea, but it will never work. Sponsors won't agree, manufacturers don't want to lose their colors either.

 

[Kaygeeoh]

MotoGP do a reasonable job ahah

So there is a solution already, this would be zero additional costs to the teams, sponsors remain happy, and teams retain their historical livery

 

[apex11]

UK Graphic designers uses someone else's designs (unless he designed each drivers helmet himself) to gain attention to himself with a frankly preposterously stupid idea in a desperate attempt to get publicity......
As someone said already like Ferrari want a car that's not red!
The drivers are the drivers the car is the car, its a daft idea and can't believe you've given this guy air time..
How about he has ago at his own designs on the cars rather than someone else's?

 

[ronniej]

Hamilton's livery would go well with white fur, purple panama hat and huge golden necklace. Bronx Pimp Design ®.

LOL, Thanks for that.

On topic: Nice looking cars actually.

 

[Blimey]

I like the Kevin Magnussen one, the liveries F1 has had for decades are booring and attract no special attention of the younger audience nowadays. But I doubt these ideas of different liveries will actually change anything, there are so many suggested insanely good liveries, but F1 ignores them.