The 2024 F1 Liveries have finally arrived and, with them, comes the unofficial beginning of the 2024 Formula 1 season. While there still may be a few weeks to go before the lights go out in Bahrain, here is my ranking of the best-looking liveries on the track.
10. Alpine
Starting at the back of our pack is Alpine. The Alpine F1 car burst on the scene in 2021 with a beautiful homage to the French flag, showing a very visually stunning blue and red livery split with a tasteful white stripe. A few years later, Alpine seems to have lost its design prowess. Once brimming with promise, this car is one of squandered potential and an identity crisis—a casualty of the pursuit to shave milliseconds off their track times by designing the vehicle with 70% of its composition as bare carbon. Alpine is pinning its hopes on the weight and speed advantages of stripping paint from its cars. However, with virtually no visual identity left, will anyone truly take notice of the new A524 as it meanders through the midfield?
9. Kick Sauber
While some have praised the design and enjoy the new look for this “new” team, I find the bright green to be a slight eyesore in the Formula One field. I can understand the appeal of the rebrand, however I feel as if the execution has just fallen flat here. It slots in above Alpine as I can respect the effort put into the overall design and I personally enjoy the fact that the driver numbers are so apparent, but everything else about this car feels tough to look at.
8. Red Bull
Red Bull was once a brand that focussed on originality, stretching the envelope when it came to both design and function. For their new 2024 F1 livery, this seems to have all flown out of the window. This car is no different from the previous iteration, something I was not expecting for the team’s 20th anniversary following a record F1 season. The only redeeming quality of this car is its matte finish, something I have always liked on the Red Bull. However, I guess if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it?
7. RB
Another team with both a name and vehicle rebrand. This one, however, seems to be moving in a good direction. I love the way this car pays tribute to the beautiful Torro Rosso cars of the past. It provides a really solid overall design with a delicate mix of gloss colors. While the blue and silver color scheme is an attractive one, the red and white stripes seem to be thrown on quite awkwardly, bringing down the overall design of a livery that had great potential.
6. Haas
Even though Haas is another team attempting to strip the paint from its car in turn for faster times on the track, there’s just something I really like about the Haas car this year. There may be a lot of carbon, but the overall design is executed in a sleek way which fits the Haas brand quite well. The general design seems much more thoughtful than that of the Alpine, a team trying to do similar things with the paint and carbon mix. The black and the white are a classic combination that is brought tastefully together with the elegant additions of red on both the nose and rear wing.
5. Williams
While the overall design may be relatively plain, I can’t help but enjoy the slightly boring blue. It’s a generally minimalist design, with shades of blue and black covering the body of the car. Compared to some of the other cars on this list, I like the fact that Williams did not shy away from the paint, covering most of the livery in alternating blues. I find the splash of orange on the engine intake specifically appealing too, finishing off a very calm but thoughtful design.
4. McLaren
I wish I could put McLaren higher on this list as they really delivered in the design department for the 2024 iteration of their car. However, as the greedy F1 fanatic that I am, I needed more of their iconic papaya. Dropping the blue strip from the past few versions of the car was a good start for McLaren. But, with so much potential every year, I still feel the McLaren car could embrace its historic beauty to a fuller extent rather than trying to follow other teams in stripping their paint in lieu of bare carbon.
3. Aston Martin
Year in and year out Aston Martin’s designers just get it right. The British Racing Green is always sleek on the car. Slightly rearranged sponsors help to give the green a fuller look on the car as well for this immaculate 2024 version. There really isn’t much to say about a car as simple and as suave as this, Aston Martin continues to put out knockout after knockout and this year is no different.
2. Mercedes
Mercedes has toggled back and forth between black and silver for years in F1 now. And, for their 2024 challenger, they have finally found a graceful way to meld these two elegant colors together. The smart design looks simply fantastic. Mercedes is one of the only manufacturers that found a tasteful way to rid themselves of needing a full paint job. The bare carbon joined together at the Tiffany green seam with the silver nose makes for a truly dapper yet functional machine. On top of the base paint job, the addition of silver stars on the rear of the car gives the vehicle a standout character on the grid.
1. Ferrari
This car is almost everything that the Tifosi could have asked for. The bold red body with the yellow and white pinstripes throughout the livery gives the car a historic yet new feel. The famous brand so carefully penned on the rear wing of the car gives it a fantastic look from the front. While this livery doesn’t reach the legendary level of the all-red-and-white paint job that the Scuderia ran in Las Vegas just this past year, it is certainly the next best thing.
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