The GridRival Livery Rankings Thread

Intro

The 2024 Formula 1 season is almost here! The cars have yet to really hit the track for pre-season testing, but with all the liveries out and shared with the world, GridRival wanted to have some fun and share with the audience our staff power rankings of the liveries and our thoughts on each of them.

It was an interesting year for car launches. A lot of teams opted to air a short video on social media, giving the audience the car and not much else. Others chose to have a full-on event, talking to executives, drivers, and the like before revealing their 2024 cars. Some teams stayed status quo, while others gave nice surprises and some were flat-out disappointments. So let's dive in, shall we?

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GridRival Staff Livery Rankings

1.Mercedes

2.Ferrari

3.RedBull

4.VCARB

5.Williams

6.Aston Martin

7.McLaren

8.Stake

9.Haas

10.Alpine

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Staff Commentary:

Ferrari

It’s red, we knew it would be red, and yet we held our breath during the reveal; but alas, it will always be red. For Ferrari, the departure from the scarlet seen on the SF-23 and the F1-75 is a marked return to Rosso Corsa. Accented with white and yellow, the SF-24 will be beautiful around the track (or in parc fermé!) Either way, I and many other Tifosi will have a poster of this car above our beds. Saluti to Ferrari consistency and reliability! 9/10 - Alex Sommerville.

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Red Bull

Red Bull is much like Ferrari (and, in a way, Aston Martin and McLaren) in that they have their brand identity, and unless they are doing a special livery, it’s going to stay largely the same. However, it’s a look that doesn’t really need changing. It's iconic, and it works. It’s got just enough pop with the yellow and red that it works with the navy blue. Maybe an extra red stripe around the outside edge of the side pods would be neat, but other than that, there’s not much I would change here. 8/10 - Garrett Ball

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Mercedes

This is how you utilize the color black well! This livery is absolutely awesome. It’s not just silver arrows, it’s not just carbon. It’s the best of both worlds. The way the silver sweeps across the top of the car and fades into the black just past the cockpit is great. The mint green, red, and white Ineos logo adds a perfect pop to it all. Mercedes has done well this year, and props to them for coming out with a great livery in an age where we all dislike carbon looks. 9/10 - Garrett Ball

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McLaren

With their surprise livery launch, McLaren became the first of many teams to reveal their 2024 car with the exposed carbon fibre look. They dropped the blue elements present since 2018, returning to a look reminiscent of the “stealth” livery they used in the Singapore GP. While it is certainly not as bright as their previous liveries, McLaren’s signature papaya orange is still prominently featured alongside their multicolored wheels, thanks to their Chrome sponsorship. Overall, while they are taking a step away from the vibrant liveries of the last era, it’s not a big jump from the 2023 livery, which in turn wasn’t a large jump from 2022 and so forth. In the end, the MCL38 livery isn’t a radical new look but rather a reduction of their recent paint jobs, boiling them down to their most fundamental, iconic traits. 8/10 - Brendan Burns

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Haas

Tried and true, the Haas VF-24 follows its predecessor's sleek, unadulterated look at carbon fibre. While primarily just a weight-cutting ploy, using minimal white paint and the look of raw carbon fibre, Haas has managed yet again to capture the essence of what amounts to Nasa and their All-American space shuttles. One can only hope that the car is as fast as it looks. A neutral and safe choice, albeit a bit boring; but what more can be expected from Haas short of another Rich Energy livery? 5.5/10  - Alex Somerville

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Sauber

With Stake’s new involvement with Formula 1, we all saw a green livery coming. And we got one. Going along with the redundant theme of carbon in 2024, there’s a lot of it on the C44. It’s how you handle having black that determines if the livery can be good in spite of it. I’ll admit I wasn’t a fan at first, but having spent some time looking at it and pondering, it’s grown on me. I would need to see more green or mix in some wild thin yellow stripes or some red to make it really stand out. It’s not as bad as my initial reaction but I’m still left wanting more. 5/10 - Garrett Ball

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Visa Cash App

At last a car with some color! RB have cleverly incorporated the colors of new title sponsor Visa into a nostalgia-fueled livery harking back to the Torro Rosso days. The bold blue, white, and red look like something out of the bronze age of comic books, a welcome relief after the endless run of predominantly black 2024 cars. The return of the silver charging silver bull on the engine cover also helps the Vcarb01 stand out from the crowd. 8/10 - Matt Harper

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Aston Martin

Aston Martin had made very little change with the livery of the AMR24 for better and for worse. Seeing any race car run something close to British Racing Green never fails to raise a smile, and whilst I’m not completely convinced about the yellow highlighting the edges of the car, it’s a color combination that works. Although there is more bare carbon fiber on this year’s car, there’s, thankfully, more green than black. 7/10 - Matt Harper

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Williams

I really liked how Williams’ livery looked in 2023. The Duracell addition to the top air intake was super creative and it was just a good look. While it’s not as much blue in 2024, I really like this new look. The darker colors blend well together and the thin white lines help with definition as well. I might have preferred a little more blue it but it’s a solid livery. 7/10 - Garrett Ball

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Alpine

Alpine shedded almost all of their color with their A524 livery reveal. Following the trend of most of the teams this year, with the introduction of new regulations and cost caps, they’ve shed almost all of their visual paint, revealing a livery with a heavy focus on exposed Carbon Fibre alongside their signature Pink and Blue accents. Alpine has been known for having bright liveries, especially when they would “flip” their pink and blue color scheme, bringing a bright pink car to a portion of their races each season. However, with 2024’s motif of exposed carbon and darker liveries, it’s harder to get that distinct visual clarity that we’ve seen from Alpine in previous seasons. And the final detail that I’d like to point out is that Alpine teased a pink camo livery on a portion of their front wing in the weeks leading up to the livery reveal, which really raised fans expectations of this season's paint job. So to be greeted with such a simple and minimal livery certainly left fans disappointed, myself included. 4/10 - Brendan Burns

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