As the 2017 F1 season prepares to draw to a close, for many (especially with the titles already settled) thoughts are starting to turn to 2018. And that’s especially true when it comes to liveries – indeed, those of us who are interested in them, and those who design fantasy versions, are almost perpetually thinking forwards as soon as the existing cars have been revealed.
In the past we’ve done roundups of fan-created livery designs looking to the next year, but this time around, rather than gathering the work of several different artists on the same teams, we’re looking at just one artist who’s gone particularly above and beyond in terms of visualising the 2018 season.
Daniel Crossman is one of our favourite up-and-coming designers (we hesitate to say “fan designer” or “amateur designer” about the likes of Daniel and Sean Bull, because that overlooks the fact that they do actually do professional design work within motorsport) and he’s one of several who are turning out designs that are more immediately fan-pleasing than the ones that we often see on actual cars.
(Incidentally, we know that fantasy designers are, of course, not subject to the same design considerations as the designers of actual working team liveries – so when we say a design looks “better” than the one on an actual car, we say it with the knowledge that there might be reasons why this the case beyond simple aesthetic decisions. We also say it, in this particular instance, in the knowledge that 2017 was a vintage year for excellent F1 liveries almost entirely across the board.)
Anyway, Daniel has not just done a few different concepts for the 2018 season – he’s worked out multiple possible designs for every team on the grid. Some of these are based on rumours about new sponsorship linkups are rebrand, and others are from the realm of pure fantasy – but what they all are is excellent. So we’ve decided to go through each team that he’s done a portfolio for, and pick out our favourite – to make a complete Fantasy 2018 Grid designed entirely by him. And we’ve even included one of his designs for a non-existent “returning” team, just to add an eleventh car to the grid.
Note that some of these designs don’t take into account driver and engine changes that have happened since they were done!
Keeping it simple, what’s good about this Mercedes design is that it strips back the amount of black that has crept onto the car in recent years. It’s understandable that the Petronas turquoise needs to be on there, but the original “Silver Arrows” identity has been somewhat lost of late, and restricting the black area to the shark fin is a good way of dealing with it.
Like us, Daniel clearly hankers after the days when the secondary colour on a (darker red) Ferrari was black, rather than white. The team may not have been massively successful in the early ’90s, but the cars were at their best-looking ever, and we’d love to see a Scuderia livery that homages that.
Well, this is a biggie. It’s not considered all that likely that Red Bull will actually completely change their colour scheme to match the new Aston Martin title sponsorship – but as this design shows, it would be absolutely flipping amazing if they did. I’m not generally a fan of fluorescent colours on F1 cars, but I do like this Brawn-style yellow, and it goes so well with the black and classic racing green.
The bold and striking pink BWT livery got Force India a lot of headlines in 2017, and I hope they stick with the concept going forward. But equally, it was a bit of a rush job, and it would be nice to see it evolved into something a bit more deeply thought-out this time – and to go for a richer shade of pink than the slightly washed-out look of the 2017 car. Daniel’s other Force India concepts made use of black as a secondary colour, but I really like the bold step of mixing blue in with this one.
Gasp! It’s not Martini! That’s because, as we’ll see later, I’ve constructed this grid on the premise of Williams losing their prestige sponsor at the end of this year. Largely because, while it’s still a lovely livery, it would just be nice to see something done a bit different – both with Martini, and with Williams. A red Williams (calling back to 1998) would be fantastic, but I doubt that’ll happen – so let’s instead have them look to their glory years with a terrific blue and yellow ’80s/early ’90s inspired design.
Let’s face it, there’s not very much that needs to be improved upon with this livery. Daniel has another concept that sees white introduced as a major colour, but I prefer sticking with the Prost-style metallic blue and red, and just shuffling the pattern of the colours around a bit. It looks fundamentally the same, but I really like the idea of splitting the colours behind the bull on the engine cover.
Renault have got the colours right these days, but could possibly stand to apply them in a more interesting way. Taking inspiration from the fantastic striped 2010 car – with more than a bit of Buzzin’ Hornets Jordan in the mix too – this one does the job just fine.
It’s not that a grey and white car is inherently a bad idea, it’s just that the 2017 Haas was so dull with it. This is an improvement not just by shifting more towards silver – brightening the whole thing up generally – but also giving a bit more of an American identity with the subtle stars and stripes.
I love that McLaren actually went orange for 2017 so much that I don’t even mind that they didn’t go the whole hog with it. But it’s hard to deny that the fully orange IndyCar that Alonso raced was far more striking than the F1 team’s livery. Daniel hasn’t designed a fully orange McLaren – maybe because it’s not that much of an artistic exercise! – so of his concepts, I’ve picked the one that’s closest to that. Really, though, I’d be happy with one that left out the black almost entirely, and had the logos and race numbers in blue, to give a truly 1960s Bruce McLaren feel (such as with this one of Sean Bull’s).
We’d be more than happy for Sauber to keep their fantastic 2017 livery, but on the other hand… well, just look at what Daniel’s done here. It’s a bit of a leap based on the possibility of Alfa Romeo becoming involved with the team – he also did some white, Alitalia-sponsored designs that are well worth a look – and thus tempting over Martini to recreate a truly classic late 1970s look. Well, wouldn’t you want to see this on the grid?
Because, well, why not? And because with the Martini Williams gone, we don’t have a white car within this set. Stewart’s first couple of liveries were a bit muggy, with a cream shade of white and slightly boring application of the tartan, but they switched to a much sharper and brighter look for 1999. I was never really disappointed that we didn’t see it after that season because it was immediately replaced by the green Jaguar – but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be nice to see it make a comeback. Question is, would they factory-share with Red Bull, or what…?