Haas and Racing Bulls caught the eye at Suzuka last weekend with a couple of creative one-off liveries – the former introducing the iconic Godzilla monster to the F1 world and the latter taking inspiration from Japanese shodo calligraphy.
With more and more teams breaking from tradition over the last couple of decades, it got the F1.com office thinking about other standout designs in recent years, with 10 of the most memorable presented in our list below…
BAR-Honda – Italy 2004
We start in the mid-noughties, when several teams ran ‘Friday drivers’ to gather more mileage during practice – BAR-Honda’s pick in that period being Anthony Davidson, whose car sported a selection of unique liveries throughout the 2004 season.
Arguably one of the coolest appeared at the Italian Grand Prix, where a race suit detailed on the side of the cockpit gave fans a better look at how drivers are seated, and nodded to the 1993 Williams that humorously featured Sonic the Hedgehog’s legs.
Red Bull – Monaco 2005
Red Bull arrived in F1 as a fully-fledged team in 2005 and were quick to bring their marketing genius to the paddock – something the energy drinks company had previously deployed across a host of extreme sports.
This included a Star Wars collaboration ahead of their first Monaco Grand Prix to promote the blockbuster Episode III – Revenge of the Sith movie, with an unmissable livery and a host of characters playing their part.
Mercedes – Germany 2019
At the 2019 German Grand Prix, Mercedes-Benz’s 125th year in motorsport was celebrated by the F1 team, who ran a split design from front to rear.
Going back almost a century, and according to legend, Mercedes’ car sat just over the weight limit for a race at the Nurburgring in 1934, prompting mechanics to scrape off the white paint the brand originally used as Germany’s national racing colour – thus exposing the silver bodywork and bringing it under the limit.
Mercedes combined the best of both worlds with their livery for the Hockenheim weekend, even if the rain-soaked race turned into a disaster for the squad when pole-sitter Lewis Hamilton came home ninth via a series of incidents and Valtteri Bottas crashed out.
Ferrari – Tuscany 2020
Ferrari were another outfit to mark a special occasion the following year when, in F1’s impressively arranged season amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the famous Italian marque celebrated their 1000th Grand Prix.
To make the moment even more special, it came on the Scuderia’s home soil at Mugello, which hosted that year’s Tuscan Grand Prix – Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel’s cars looking resplendent in an updated burgundy livery.
McLaren – Monaco 2024
McLaren have plenty of recent form when it comes to one-off liveries, particularly around the streets of Monaco, where they caught the eye in 2021 with a blue-and-orange Gulf throwback and shone again in 2023 with a ‘Triple Crown’ celebration.
However, for this list, we have chosen their colourful Ayrton Senna tribute in 2024 – the Brazilian’s yellow and green helmet colours (and those of his home country) starring around the streets of Monte Carlo once more.
Red Bull – Turkey 2021
In 2021, Red Bull paid tribute to their outgoing power unit partner, Honda, at the Turkish Grand Prix, after the Japanese manufacturer’s home round at Suzuka was called off due to the COVID-19 situation in the country at the time.
Red Bull’s clean, white livery took inspiration from Richie Ginther’s Honda RA272, which won the 1965 Mexican Grand Prix, while the cars of sister team AlphaTauri ran the Japanese script for ‘arigato’ – ‘thank you’ – on their rear wings.
Alfa Romeo – Azerbaijan 2022
Alfa Romeo created several eye-catching liveries during their latest stint in F1, including when they swapped a traditional red-and-white paintjob for the Italian flag at selected races in 2021, 2022 and 2023.
While the 2021 and 2023 examples were used for their home race at Monza, Alfa Romeo celebrated the launch of the Tonale – the brand’s first electrified SUV – with Il Tricolore during the 2022 Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Williams – Singapore/Japan/Qatar 2023
In 2023, the aforementioned Gulf switched their F1 partnership activities from McLaren to Williams – and the oil company’s classic colour combination would be seen again towards the tail-end of that season thanks to a livery competition for fans.
Williams gave supporters the opportunity to choose from four potential liveries for the Singapore, Japan and Qatar rounds – titled ‘Heritage’, ‘Bolder than Bold’, ‘Visionary’ and ‘Contemporary’ – with ‘Bolder than Bold’ winning out in a vote that attracted some 180,000 entries.
Alpine – Austin 2024
Alpine have been one of the more colourful teams on the grid in recent seasons, blending vibrant shades of blue and pink, but the 2024 campaign took things to another level thanks to marketing deals around movie and video game releases.
First up was a red-and-black livery at the Belgian Grand Prix, to mark the premiere of the Deadpool & Wolverine film, before they moved to a similarly striking ‘sunset orange’ colour scheme at the United States Grand Prix (featured above), ahead of the Indiana Jones and the Great Circle game being launched.
Racing Bulls – Las Vegas 2025
Racing Bulls are another team who have enjoyed mixing up their liveries in recent years – from tortoise patterns to all-pink schemes and that recent Japanese shodo calligraphy creation.
We picked out the shiniest of them all to conclude this list, though, with the team’s cars – as well as the race suits worn by drivers Liam Lawson and Isack Hadjar – adopting a holographic-inspired design for the 2025 Las Vegas Grand Prix.
