One team has bucked F1’s trend for darker liveries

The lack of colour in the 2023 Formula 1 grid may have been expected but has nonetheless been to the dismay of many fans.

F1 teams have long appreciated the benefits of leaving areas of their cars unpainted. Dark shades made it more difficult for their rivals to inspect the geometries of their aerodynamic surfaces.

But in recent years teams have had another reason to incorporate bare carbon into their liveries: Less paint means lower weight.

When Aston Martin appeared on the grid in 2021 the team soon began seeking a lighter paint for their shade of British Racing Green. This was partly because the new technical regulations coming for the following season increased the minimum weight limit to 798kg.

After the beginning of last season, several teams reduced the painted areas on their cars in a bid to trim off a few more grams. Aston Martin was one of them. Its technical director Dan Fallows admitted changes in the weight of parts they don’t manufacture, such as Pirelli’s tyres, posed a problem they hadn’t entirely foreseen.

“The weight limit did go backwards and forwards,” he conceded. “There was an increase in the weight of the tyres.

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“There are ways that we can integrate that into the regulations, so that’s really what it came down to. Yes, these cars are, as we’ve seen, a reasonable challenge to get them down to the weight limit.

“We’ve worked extremely hard to make sure that we have the ability to do what we want with the car. And so that’s been a big focus on getting there.”

Fallows says Aston Martin made good progress reducing the weight of their car during 2022. “AMR22, by the time we’d finished with it was in a much better shape than we were at the start of the season,” said Fallows. “So we’re in a pretty good position, I think, going into AMR23.”

Nonetheless their new AMR23 appeared with much the same livery as last year. Its front and rear wings were left black, as is also the case on Williams, Alfa Romeo, Mercedes and Ferrari’s new cars. But do fans hoping the grid doesn’t become overrun with dark liveries have cause for optimism?

One team which scaled back the paintwork on its 2022 car presented a machine with a splash more colour this week. McLaren’s MCL60 sported an orange rear wing at its launch on Monday.

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