Simply a layer of paint? How coloring can affect the performance of a Formula One race car

Apart from their staggering speed that stimulates infinite interest, Formula One race cars are also exclusive in their color schemes, which uniquely represent their team’s symbol. For example, the correlation between Ferrari and its color red has now been embedded deeply in every person’s heart. The linkage has been so influential that every time the brand Ferrari is mentioned, red is always intuitively associated, hence, this also reflects back to the choice of color on their racing products. Through its past 74 years in the Formula One Championship, drivers varied, competitiveness varied, but the only unchanging variable is the red-painted thunderbolt that roars across the track (except for one special circumstance: the Ferrari 158). Similarly, in modern days, these brand connotations related colors can be seen in the McLaren orange, the Williams blue, and the Aston Martin green, which can be an extremely effective marketing strategy. However, in contemporary paddocks, the proportion of these colors is constantly falling, resulting in black carbon fibers being exposed to our naked eyes, hence significantly reducing the aesthetics of these exquisite machines, but why?

2004 Ferrari F2004 (full body covered with paint)

2021 Ferrari F1-75 (front wing and rear wing are all unpainted)

In a sport where even a hundredth of seconds matters, teams are surely going to devise any plans possible to enhance their competitiveness. In the past, the focus of reducing weight might have been on the materials themselves, whereas now, these rudimentary methods of minimization are outdated, and teams have to brainstorm on other aspects to achieve this purpose. Under the new technology, the body paint for an F1 car only accounts for 1.5kg of its total mass, compared to an average of 30kg for a family-style vehicle. Despite its minimal impact, racing engineers still plan to decrease the use of such paint without losing the car’s identification, which is one reason why naked carbon fiber is now more frequently used. Another reason is that the current weight minimum is set at 798kg considering the driver, which is difficult to reach given that rule changes severely increase the weight, but in the previous ages, the exact opposite occurred, the cars that these teams built were often too light, thus reducing paint was not a consideration point.