The Good and the Bad – F1 livery from 2002

The 2002 FIA Formula 1 World Championship, what else is there to say about it other than total dominance by Michael Schumacher and Ferrari? Schumacher taking a record number of wins, and won the drivers titles in a record time and won in by a record number of points. Other than that? Renault took complete control of Benetton and Toyota entered Formula 1 with their own works team.

You can check out the past entries in The Good and the Bad – F1 livery here and see my picks for the best and worst liveries from the 2002 F1 season below.

2002 – The Good

Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro

Panasonic Toyota Racing

DHL Jordan Honda

2002 – The Bad

KL Minardi Asiatech

Orange Arrows

The Good and the Bad – F1 livery from 2001

After a few days break we are back looking at Formula 1 livery with The Good and the Bad. The last couple of days have seen a spy shot of the new Lotus sneak out from their shakedown run at Silverstone, and Red Bull Racing unveil the RB6 yesterday before the start of the second Formula 1 testing session of the 2010 season.

The 2001 FIA Formula 1 World Championship was dominated by Michael Schumacher who took nine race wins and four second place finishes out of the seventeen race calendar! Schumacher won the driver’s title by 58 points and helped secure the constructors title for Ferrari which they won by 77 points. 2001 was also the first year in Formula 1 for two future world championship, Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen but it was also the final year in Formula 1 for Mika Hakkinen and was Benetton’s final year before it became the works Renault team. Outside of Michael Schumacher’s dominance, 2001 also saw Williams have a very strong year with the team taking four race wins over the course of the season with Ralf Schumacher taking three race wins just to add to the Schumacher dominance of Formula 1 in 2001.

2001 – The Good

B&H Jordan Honda

European Minardi F1

Red Bull Sauber Petronas

2001 – The Bad

Orange Arrows Asiatech

The Good and the Bad – F1 livery from 2000

The 2000 FIA Formula 1 World Championship, what to say about this one? Well, after braking his leg at the British Grand Prix in 1999 Michael Schumacher showed he was suffering no ill effects as he came back to secure the drivers and constructors title in 2000 for Ferrari. It was 2000 that seen the start of Ferrari and Schumacher’s dominance of Formula 1, though in 2000 Mika Hakkinen and McLaren gave Schumacher a good battle. The 2000 season also say the first death in Formula 1 since the death of Ayrton Senna in 1994 when a marshal was tragically killed at Monza by a loose wheel after the two Jordan cars collided, and it brought safety back to forefront of Formula 1 discussion and rule making.

As for the cars for The Good and the Bad – F1 livery, well 2000 has another fantastic looking car from Jordan, though only slightly different from the 1999 car it is in my opinion the best looking car since the 1991 7Up Jordan. The 2000 season also seen BMW arriving in Formula 1, and the appearance of Jaguar on the grid.

2000 – The Good

Benson and Hedges Jordan

Jaguar Racing

Red Bull Sauber Petronas

2000 – The Bad

Fondmetal Minardi

The Good and the Bad – F1 livery from 1999

The 1999 FIA Formula 1 World Championship saw Mika Hakkinen and McLaren winning the driver’s title for the second year in a row, while Ferrari took the constructors title in what was an extremely competitive season. The driver’s title went right down to wire, with Hakkinen only just beating Eddie Irvine by two points in what was without questions Irvine’s best season in Formula 1 and one that he perhaps should have won if the Ferrari pit crew hadn’t made a mess of his pitstop during the European Grand Prix, but it was a season that say a lot mistakes from McLaren as well so who can say. 1999 also say Jordan have their strongest ever performance in F1 with Heinz-Harald Frentzen even being in with a shoot with driver’s title, so it was a very good year to an Irish Formula 1 fan!

As for the cars themselves? Well they hadn’t started to sprout all the little wings and other odd things which would become common place in the years to follow, and the 1999 Jordan along with the 2000 Jordan are in my opinion the best look F1 cars and livery since the 7Up Jordan we say in 1991. The 1999 season might be the best for livery that we have seen in this series of The Good and the Bad – F1 livery. Saying that, 1999 might have the worst looking car we have seen in this series of blog posts aswell.

1999 – The Good

Benson and Hedges Jordan

Winfield Williams

Mild Seven Benetton Playlife

1999 – The Bad

British American Racing

The Good and the Bad – F1 livery from 1998

When I started this series of The Good and the Bad – F1 livery back on the 26th January I really hadn’t put much thought in to it. Basically just with the 2010 Formula 1 car launches happening the idea popped in to my head that looking back at some of the past car liveries in F1 would make for some decent blog posts, and to be fair I’ve not put much more thought in to it. It has been very interesting though to go back and look at the cars which sat on the grid from 1991 to 1998, which is the subject of today’s blog post and not just see which car looked the best, but to see how the design of F1 cars evolved in a short period of time. It’s also been a good way to bring back old memories!

Anyway, lets get on with this. The 1998 FIA Formula 1 World Championship say quite a few changes from previous couple of years with McLaren coming back to form and competing for titles again, with Mika Hakkinen being the third driver in three years to win the divers title while holding of Michael Schumacher. The 1998 season also say the introduction of the grooved tyres which seemed to signal the end for Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve as both drivers seemed to struggle to adjust to the new tyres. For Hill at least there was one highlight of the season, and that was his victory at Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium where he took his Jordan to the teams very first victory, and in fact it was a one-two finish for Jordan as Ralf Schumacher secured second place. The massive accident at the every start of the Belgium Grand Prix which involved half the grid and stopped four drivers from taking part in the restart thanks to lack of spare cars, coupled with the weather during the race did play a massive part in Jordan’s victory, but it did signal a change which would see Jordan become one of the front running teams in a few short years.

As for which cars I’m going to stick a pin into today when I’m picking my good and bad liveries of the 1998 Formula 1 World Championship? Well it’s starting to get harder to pick as by 1998 there was just eleven teams competing in Formula 1, but you can see my picks below and decided if I have terrible taste in F1 cars or not.

1998 – The Bad

Benson & Hedges Jordan

West McLaren Mercedes

Red Bull Sauber Petronas

1998 – The Bad

Fondmetal Minardi Team SpA

The Good and the Bad – F1 livery from 1997

Was 1997 the start of a new era of good looking F1 cars after a few years of transition from the early 90′s cars? What it was the start of a new era for though was Ferrari’s and Michael Schumacher’s rise to dominance, and the start of the fall of Benetton and Williams. Williams would win both the drivers title and the constructors title in 1997 but Michael Schumacher pushed Jacques Villeneuve very hard throughout the season, so hard in fact that he got himself disqualified from the drivers championship for trying to ram Villeneuve of the track at the final race of the reason.

The 1997 also say some big livery changes, with Marlboro moving from McLaren to Ferrari as a sponsor the red and white livery of McLaren that had become quite iconic was replaced by the new silver and black livery, which McLaren is still running with in 2010 albeit a rather better looking one. The 1997 also say Jordan back on form with it car liveries, and the start of them running cars with some sort of creature on the nose of the car with 1997 being the year of the snake for Jordan.

Now onto my picks for The Good and the Bad of the 1997 FIA Formula 1 World Championship!

1997 – The Good

B&H Total Jordan Peugeot

West McLaren Mercedes

Rothmans Williams Renault

1997 – The Bad

Minardi Team SpA

MasterCard Lola F1 Team

The Good and the Bad – F1 livery from 1996

It feels like the year has finally started now, at least when it comes to Formula 1 as today is the first official test day of the F1 2010 calendar. Seven of the teams are taking part in the testing at the Circuit Ricardo Tormo outside Valencia, in Spain. Yesterday saw the unveiling of the new Renault and Sauber for 2010 and before testing started this morning, Mercedes GP finally took the covers of their 2010 car as well. One other team also unveiled their car this morning and that was Toro Rosso, which at the minute is my personal favourite for best looking 2010 F1 car, but it’s also interesting as it the first car that the Toro Rosso team has design themselves since Red Bull bought the Minardi F1 team in 2005. If you want to check out some pictures of the new cars pop on over to F1 Wolf and make sure you check out this article for some very good pictures of the new 2010 cars on track.

As for today’s “The Good and the Bad” blog post? Well we are onto looking at the liveries from the 1996 Formula 1 World Championship, a year that was totally dominated by Williams and it finally say Damon Hill win the drivers title after being beaten by a single point in 1994 by Michael Schumacher. As for the cars themselves, they changed quite drastically in appearance from the previous year, mostly thanks to the raised cockpit sides to help protect drivers from the sort of head injuries that killed Aryton Senna in 1994.

1994 also say Jordan produce what may of been their worst looking F1 car, and there are a few other rather bad looking liveries on the grid as well. Have a look below to see for yourself. Oh and you will notice I’ve cheated slightly today and include two teams in both the “The Good” and “The Bad” sections, but as you can see they ran two radically different liveries during the season, and to very different results.

1996 – The Good

Red Bull Sauber Ford

Footwork Hart (Power Horse livery)

Forti Grand Prix (Shannon livery)

1996 – The Bad

Footwork Hart

B&H Total Jordan Peugeot

Forti Grand Prix (Hudson livery)

The Good and the Bad – F1 livery from 1995

On pole position for The Good and the Bad – F1 livery today is the 1995 Formula 1 World Championship. It was a season that was once again dominated by Benetton and Williams,with the two teams winning all but one of the seventeen races on the calendar for that season. The highlight was once again Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill battling it out for the drivers title, but unlike 1994 the gap between the two drivers was a lot bigger with Schumacher winning nine races compared to Hill four race wins which resulted in Schumacher winning the drivers title by thirty-three points.

The season also say a horrible looking yellow car sitting on the grid, and that was to be repeated by another team in the 1996 season. What is interesting about the car design from 1995 though is that McLaren used a design during the season which is surprising similar to the MP4-25 which they revealed yesterday for the 2010 season.

1995 – The Good

Nokia Tyrrell Yamaha

Minardi Scuderia Italia

1995 – The Bad

Parmalat Forti Ford

MTV Simtek Ford

The Good and the Bad – F1 livery from 1994

We are getting into the mid 90′s now with this series of blog posts looking at the livery designs in Formula 1. Today it’s the turn of the 1994 Formula 1 season, which has to be one of the most memorable season in Formula 1 in the last twenty years, but also one of the most tragic.  It might seem hard to imagine that it was so long ago now, but the 1994 season was when Michael Schumacher won his first of seven Formula 1 World Championships though it is always remembered for the fact that Schumacher and Damon Hill collided during the final race of the season, which left Schumacher winning the championship by a single point.

All the controversy and excitement of the title race though were overshadowed by the tragic loss of life which occurred during the San Marino Grand Prix where Roland Ratzenberger was killed after a crash in qualifying, and during the race itself the three time world champion Ayrton Senna also died after crashing. Senna’s death especially sent a shock wave around the world at the passing of one of motorsports greatest ever drivers in such a fashion, and it resulted in massive changes being brought in to improve safety in Formula 1. Those changes would in a couple of years time quite drastically change the design of a Formula 1 car.

I was rather young at the time, but the death of Ayrton Senna was one of the most upsetting experience in my life. Like many people who watch Formula 1, especially when you are young it is easy to dream about being a Formula 1 driver, and like a lot of other people I think Ayrton Senna was my idol.

Anyway, lets get on with it. Below you will see my picks from “The Good” and “The Bad” of F1 livery from 1994 and if you want to view the previous entries in this series of blog posts you can find them here.

1994 – The Good

Rothmans Williams Renault

Team Lotus

Broker Sauber Mercedes

1994 – The Bad

Pacific Grand Prix Ltd

Tourtel Larrousse F1

Minardi Scuderia Italia

1994 – I don’t know!

Footwork Ford

I really don’t know if the 1994 Footwork should fall under The Good or The Bad. Personally I quite like it, but I’ve always rather liked Footwork for some reason but is it actually a good looking car?

The Good and the Bad – F1 livery from 1993

Today say the launch of the first 2010 spec Formula 1 car in the form the new Ferrari F10 and it is rather interesting to see a lot more white on the new car which gives it some common ground with the livery used on the Ferrari F93A. As you might guess from it’s name, the F93A was the Ferrari that was sitting on the 1993 Formula 1 grid and it that grid that I’m having a look at today. The big three of the early 90′s, McLaren, Williams  and Benetton didn’t seen much change when it came to their livery designs and though the McLaren of this period is rather iconic these days, they wouldn’t exactly jump out of the pack at you for good or bad reasons.

The 1993 grid thankfully didn’t have any purple nosed Brabham’s on it but there was one in particular which hits the rather garish button. You can see my good and bad picks from the 1993 Formula 1 car liveries below.

If you want to have a look at the previous “The Good and the Bad – F1 livery” blog posts you can find them here. Been very good to see the number of hits they have been getting, and the number of comments about the 1991 season for the 7Up Jordan. Thanks very much for that.

1993 – The Good

Sasol Jordan

Team Lotus

Minardi Team

1993 – The Bad

Tyrrell Racing Organisation

Larrousse F1