Oliver WhiteTo coincide with Renault’s celebrations of 30 years in Formula One, the team have produced a show model R27, complete with the synonymous livery that the Anglo-French cars used to race with back in the ’70s. Unfortunately, the beautiful-looking car will not race in the retro livery as the rules state the cars must run a similar colour scheme during the season. And as Renault are currently promoting ING among others on their cars, their current look is more white, blue and yellow, as opposed to the yellow and black of days gone by.
How is then Renault allowed the face car livery ?
I meant Red Bull 😛
That’s actually a good question. I can only assume it is because:
1) They have changed livery for a very good cause.
2) The livery is still predominantly the same, with Red Bull logos on the front and rear wings. Red Bull have few other sponsors, so the addition of the 30k faces only displaces the blue lines.
I think the rule came into force only because BAR wanted to run each car in a different livery during their first year in F1. This would have confused spectators (in the eyes of the FIA). Honda were allowed to run a different livery in China when they were still sponsored by BAT.
Red Bull probably got special permission from the powers-that-be to run the one-off livery, just as Spyker got permission to change livery for the last three races (to avoid confusion with previous owners Midland), and Jaguar/Red Bull and BAR got permission to run one-offs to showcase particular sponsors at various times. The rule is really there to stop teams from making their cars different colours every race and confusing everyone. Since this is not Red Bull’s intention (it would mess up their marketing, for a start!) it’s no surprise that they’ve been allowed the temporary colour scheme change.
[…] to a modern-day chassis;. Indeed, Renault themselves clearly know how great it is, having mocked up a special livery last year to commemorate 30 years of F1 – so why the hell don’t the current cars look like that? Sigh. […]
[…] of the originals, dating back to 1977. The team, to mark their 30th anniversary in 2007, did paint a modern RenaultF1 in similar colours, and the scheme was much applauded the world over. It would seem as though the team were […]