I may be old and grumpy, but I hated them.....too fussy, you can't really see what the cars even look like because of all that's going on.....same for the helmets - I can't spot them and tell whos who. I'd prefer less adornment on both the cars and the helmets, and I think it would be fun if the helmets were solid color, maybe the driver's home country the way F1 cars used to be painted? How easy would it be to spot Verstappen in a bright orange helmet? As it is you have to look closely to tell a Maclaren from a Force India, a Red Bull from a Toro Rosso , Haas from a Manor and so on. About the only cars easy to spot are the Ferrari, Mercedes and Renault.
Ok thats two of us that are old and grumpy. I think the new F1 cars are not very good looking. So maybe thats why I like the paint job. The older cars I would agree I like the more solid colors.
Yep, BAR wanted to run separate liveries on each car, ala Champcar, but the team cars have to be identical in F1 so they came up with the zipper design as an F U to F1.
I think the teams should be able to have different liveries on each car. This could really help smaller teams attract sponsors at a lower cost.
I agree, and not just because of that potential benefit for the smaller teams. I think there's too much emphasis on team identity and the championship (well, both championships, but that's a different rant). I watch races to see a bunch of individuals racing one another, not to see a team of drivers race other teams of drivers. Leave it up to the teams to decide on their own, I suppose, but at least give them the option to customize each driver's car or to just allow their drivers some degree of customization freedom within the team livery. Speaking a bit selfishly as a viewer, no, I don't think putting numbers on the cars is enough, and I don't think I should have to remember drivers' helmet designs and try to spot that to figure out whether I'm watching Rosberg or Hamilton, Vettel or Raikkonen, etc.