How are Formula One Cars Painted?

Despite its radical designs and rugged body shapes, Formula One race cars can not only evoke fierce and power to their crowds, in fact, colors and paint schemes shape up yet another aspect of this sport: beauty. Different liveries are deliberately implemented by racing teams to increase the exposure of their own brands or sponsors, also serving to associate fans’ passion with this exclusivity and uniqueness. However, the coloring process of a Formula One car drastically differs from simply applying paint using a brush as if it’s a decoration of your house. In reality, numerous steps and scrupulous procedures have to be conducted to ensure quality, exposure, and aerodynamic efficiency. Overall, it’s not an easy task!

Of course, before any activities that involve precision, planning is always necessary. Similar to this scenario, experiments with a model are needed to avoid errors, so a paint buck is utilized, this is basically a 1:1 model that contains the real surfaces, shapes, and chassis of the actual race car, paint teams can therefore try out different livery designs, sponsor locations and color choices. As a result, after countless trials, the paint teams are ready to work on the real body parts. Next, there are a series of preparations to follow. For example, surface conditions of the body parts have to be modified or examined, such modifications involve sanding, to scrape and abrade the surface, filling, to smoothen the surface. Notice that areas of paint and no paint should already be devised. Normally, aerodynamic body parts are left with black carbon to avoid the disturbance of airflow and prevent the build-up of dust. Afterward, multiple layers of paint are then applied. The bottom layer or primer should facilitate the effectiveness of absorption of the real color layers, so white can be the optimal choice, then other color layers are added to the original one which contributes to the eventual livery.