F1 in livery push for 2025 to make cars look all different

Distinguishing cars on the grid

Formula 1 is pushing teams to make their car liveries more distinguishable from 2025 onwards.

Early season feedback has highlighted the difficulty in identifying certain cars from certain angles, particularly during night races.

The Aston Martin and Mercedes liveries, as well as the Williams and Red Bull, have been singled out for their indistinguishable appearances at high speeds.

The weight-saving dilemma

The issue of similar-looking cars has been exacerbated by teams' efforts to reduce weight by cutting back on paint coverage, resulting in increased prominence of unpainted black carbon fiber, which is identical across all cars.

Collaborative approach

The FIA and FOM aim to address the situation collaboratively with teams, rather than imposing strict regulations.

Discussions have begun at the F1 Commission to find a suitable way forward. FIA's head of single-seater matters, Nikolas Tombazis, emphasized the need for a process where teams communicate with each other to ensure distinct color schemes.

Distinguishing drivers

Beyond car liveries, there is also concern over the difficulty in distinguishing drivers within the same team.

With less iconic helmet designs and the halo obstructing visibility, it has become challenging for fans to recognize individual drivers.

The current regulation only requires a color flash on the on-board cameras of the second car.

Balancing regulations and teamwork

Tombazis stressed the importance of teams taking ownership of the situation and working together for the common good, rather than the FIA imposing regulations and penalizing teams for non-compliance.

The push for more distinguishable liveries and driver identification addresses a crucial aspect of fan engagement and television viewership.

Teams will need to strike a balance between weight-saving measures and ensuring their cars and drivers are easily recognizable on the grid.

Collaboration and communication among teams will be key to achieving this goal without the need for strict regulations.

"We need to get to some process where teams in some way or other communicate with each other and say: 'Well, if your car is blue here, mine will not be blue there.' Or something like that."

- Nikolas Tombazis

"We don't want to be making regulations about liveries as the FIA, but we do want cars to be distinguishable."

"We need to find some way to make people be able to know if it is [George] Russell or [Lewis] Hamilton, but also to be able to easily distinguish the cars."