F1 chiefs plan big car livery change in 2025 amid current similarity concerns. F1 bosses want major change to cars in response to swathe of fan complaints.

Formula 1 officials are set to motivate teams to develop more visually striking car liveries in response to fan complaints about the growing trend of darker designs.

As cars are now heavier than ever, it has become common practice for teams to leave parts of their cars unpainted, a method that can save several kilograms and enhance performance.

However, the downside is that many cars now appear dark and can be hard to distinguish from one another from certain television camera angles. Motorsport.com reports that Formula 1 leaders are exploring ways to address this issue.

The report highlights the similarities between the Williams and Red Bull liveries, and also points out that from some camera angles during live broadcasts, it can be challenging to differentiate between the Mercedes and Aston Martin cars.

Both Formula One Management and the FIA agree on this matter. They aim to encourage brighter and more distinctive liveries to improve the fan experience but prefer to avoid implementing a regulation change if possible.

Nikolas Tombazis, the FIA’s head of single-seater matters, stated that the topic has been scheduled for discussion at the next F1 Commission meeting to seek a way forward:

“As always in Formula 1, it is a bit more complicated than maybe meets the eye. One issue is that cars have a bit too much naked carbon, because obviously the weight of paint, so the cars have a bit too much black. There has also been a lot of work done by all teams to change the type of paint or indeed a lot of it nowadays is extremely thin films, to keep the weight as low as possible.” – he pointed out.

Nikolas Tombazis believes that the best way to address the situation is through a collaborative effort among the teams, rather than imposing new regulations to enforce changes.

“And another issue is that some teams seem to use similar colour schemes, so they end up with cars that maybe look visually quite close to each other. We’re discussing it still with the teams, and it will be discussed in the next F1 Commission. We need to get to some process where teams in some way or other communicate with each other and say, ‘Well, if your car is blue here, mine will not be blue there’. Or something like that. But how exactly that process would work [remains to be seen]. It’s not a regulatory process. We don’t want to be making regulations about liveries as the FIA, but we do want cars to be distinguishable.” – Nikolas Tombazis added.