The 2016 Formula One Liveries Reviewed

This article originally appeared on VICE Sports UK.

Alas, the 2016 Formula One season is in danger of being almost as forgettable as 2015 – so much so that several teams have not noticed the changing of the year and left the same paint scheme on their cars. Still, there's enough change to make it worth taking a sideways glance at F1's sticker trade. Here's who's wearing what in 2016.

America's first F1 entry since Alan Jones squeezed himself into a tiny model named Beatrice has blazed onto the scene on the back of a bald eagle, screaming 'YEEEEHA!' to an outlaw country soundtrack and smashing cans of Miller Lite faster than Cleetus McNascar at a Daytona tailgate party.

Or at least we wish it had. Instead, the Haas – built with the boffins in Italy and based largely in the UK – is silver. It's a tame looker in a field of tame lookers, where I can imagine the grizzly hand of a focus group reaching out and whispering 'Okay, that's quite enough red.' Apparently its design is meant to directly reference their 'complete line of vertical and horizontal machining cen…'

Sorry, nodded off. Anyway, it looks less like a real racing car and more like what you'd design for the top-level single seater on your racing game if you had no official licenses. It's not so much outlaw country, more 'have a nice day' and overly sweet customer service. Perennial nice guy Romain Grosjean will fit right in.

They Say: "The dark gray, light gray and red-toned livery of the VF-16 was derived from the scheme of Haas Automation's complete line of vertical and horizontal machining centers, turning centers and rotary tables and indexers."

We Say: "Rotary tables are the best kind of tables. Wait, no, rotisserie. No idea what a rotary table is."

Quote Down the Pub: "Haas' partnership with Ferrari is fascinating. They've made no secret this is a customer car with lots of Ferrari parts, and that could put them straight into the midfield dogfight. The silver and black might cause confusion with Force India, but probably not Mercedes."

Manor Racing have done a Haas, but instead of customering their car from an established team, they've customered bits of art from all over. It's the Urban Outfitters approach to F1 design, complete with Instagram-filtered car launch photos.

The logo is eerily reminiscent of the London Weekend Television (LWT) brand from the '70s, while Pascal Wehrlein's distinct Steve McQueen-esque cool will be enhanced by the John Wyer/Gulf Racing overalls. It's possible they got those from a discount stand at the Autosport International Show. The car meanwhile looks suspiciously like a tribute to the spectacularly underwhelming Spirit 201C.

Despite all that it's a decent enough looking machine and, with Mercedes power, could spring a surprise or two.

They Say: "It was already a great-looking car but the new livery is stunning."

We Say: "The ultimate hipster racing car. Bet their press pack comes with a vinyl record of the engine noise. Is Haryanto wearing flares?"

Quote Down the Pub: "There's nothing wrong with retro in the right place, and if the car's as big an improvement as they're claiming we won't be talking about their art department by the chequer in Australia."

The only thing darker than Fernando Alonso's expression during 2015 was the colour of his car, and with that in mind, McLaren have revealed another black effort. It's remarkably similar to last year's, and suggests they're simply hoping to go unnoticed while they trundle around being passed by the Manor on the straights before blowing up.

It's very easy to criticise McLaren's current form – fun too – but the 'size zero' concept pioneered by the Honda boffins makes for a pretty car. Unfortunately, it also means the space for the turbo is too small and everything is too hot. Still, 'nothing tastes as good as skinny feels'.

Except champagne…

They Say: "As we embark on the second year of our renewed McLaren-Honda partnership, all of us remain united in our purpose. That purpose is to develop our team towards our shared ambition: to win."

We Say: "Obsidian, onyx, midnight, lost soul, rolling blackout, sleeping panther and Void by Armani are all terms we could use either for the car's livery, or the colour of Ron Dennis' mood ring at the end of 2015."

Quote Down the Pub: "A strong McLaren has the potential to considerably improve F1, and if anyone has the engineering expertise to fix the current issues, it's Honda. The chassis is a decent looker, especially the slim rear end."

Mercedes' dominant 2015 season clearly hasn't meant much of a bonus for their graphics team, who seem to have spent only 15 minutes on this year's car. It's interesting to note that they sprayed the colours rather swiftly, as the silver obviously hadn't dried before they applied the teal, thus leaving a rather undefined line.

We can exclusively reveal that during a helmetless joyride in the show car, a good amount of Toto Wolff's recently applied Just for Men was blown onto the airbox. Unfortunately for the design team, it appears this accidental modification has stuck. It's unclear whether 'Boss' is what Lewis Hamilton is calling himself now, or if the team is sponsored by the German fashion house.

They Say: "The W07 is a team coming together as one." (Snigger)

We Say: "We hope the back looks nice, because everyone else will see a lot of it."

Quote Down the Pub: "Mercedes' rich motorsport history is recognised by the classic silver. Petronas bring that metallic blue, which is a bold and modern yet inoffensive touch. It's likely to be seen at the front of a lot of grids."

Red Bull's bold decision to reveal a tribute livery to 1995's average-but-plucky Sauber C14 could only have been more perfect if they'd had David Duchovny pull the covers off in character as his F1 driving alter ego Heinz-Harald Frentzen. That new series of the X-Files really scuppered a great launch.

Christian Horner – a man who enjoys the past so much he married a Spice Girl – describes the livery as 'innovative and aggressive'. I would personally describe it as 'blue'. Perhaps all the photos he's seen of Bugattis from 1924 have been in black and white, but if bringing back ideas first made popular in the early decades of the 20th century is 'innovative and aggressive' then Nigel Farage is at the very forefront of the trend. At least it doesn't have weird purple sidepods this year.

They Say: "We decided to go for something a bit more innovative and aggressive, with a fresh feel to it that will stand out in the crowd."

We Say: "It's blue. Other blue racing cars include the Bugatti Type 35, a whole series of Alpine Renaults, and every Red Bull F1 car ever."

Quote Down the Pub: "Removing the thick white stroke from the script on the sidepods has subtly toned down the classic logo, while the yellow keyline on the bull is certainly an interesting touch. Matte cars don't always photograph well, so I look forward to seeing how it comes across on TV."

Renault's designer is clearly a fool. The first rule of graphic design is to make your hard work as obvious as possible, so spending ages drawing some lovely hexagons in a slightly subtler shade of black than the main body was a sorry mistake.

To me it's fantastic and looked great at launch, but to Joe Public it was 'boring', and the French team 'could have done better'. The gorgeous yellow touches accent it well, though quite why the Jack&Jones logos are falling off I can't tell you.

It's all academic anyway: they'll have a new livery by the start of the season.

They Say: "Motorsports still spark the imagination of both enthusiasts and everyday drivers, and we are putting a comprehensive programme in place."

We Say: "Classy, subtle, great yellow. Thoroughly wasted on F1's army of 'design experts'."

Quote Down the Pub: "It's just a testing livery, so don't get too stressed. Let's instead applaud their decision to bring youthful talent in Kevin Magnussen, who deserved a second chance, and another Brit in Jolyon Palmer."

While some teams have frivolously spent thousands of pounds on graphic designers, or even whole departments, Force India have taken the thrifty route and simply revealed last year's livery.

Vijay Mallya reckons it's both 'smart and contemporary' – 2015 is certainly contemporary – and that the car 'reflects our… history' – 2015 is also historic now, so he's right there too. The car is reasonably smart, and the green and orange accents compliment its shape quite nicely.

They Say: "The car looks smart and contemporary, and reflects our partners and heritage."

We Say: "They had some stickers left over."

Quote Down the Pub: "I hope that this barely-revised livery hides a car that has kept pace with F1's development race. It's great to have Indian interest in motor racing, and it was fantastic to see them on the podium last season."

While Red Bull have been paying tribute to Saubers of the '90s, the Hinwil team have looked to their more recent past for inspiration by unveiling a 2015 tribute livery. The details are exquisite – this is a wonderful replica of a classic paint scheme.

Or, to put it another way, they have unveiled last year's car. It's conceivable that this was not planned – Monisha Kaltenborn and her rugged little team were quite possibly too busy searching for a few Euros down the back of their sofas to notice that their art department have been playing Fallout for six months.

They Say: "A Euro! Fantastic! Three more and we can have lunch!"

We Say: "I'm blue da-ba-dee-da-ba-die."

Quote Down the Pub: "Times are tough for small independent teams, so I'm just glad to see backers on the car. Let's hope that the difficult financial climate of modern F1 doesn't sink them."

This is a wonderful example of democratic livery design. While the majority of the car is clean and retro with clear references to the 312T, management's desire for the design to be a 'little jazzier' is reflected on the airbox.

The absurdly large red/white logo with absurdly tiny text and even more absurd drop shadow – around all four edges, no less – is a classic disaster. I can imagine the argument: team principal Maurizio Arrivabene is asking for an ever bigger, ever more beshadowed graphic, while the chief designers frantically argue for a simple, cleaner solution. Arms were waved, coffee spilled, but at 4:30pm on Friday the graphics team went home, forgot to lock their computers, and Arrivabene opened Photoshop. The rest, as they say, is several items from the effects panel and several trips to the scaling tool.

They Say: "Humility is our driver, our passion, our commitment."

We Say: "Step away from the effects panel, Maurizio."

Quote Down the Pub: "Whatever your views on the trend for 'retro' in design, Ferrari's army of fans have lapped this new effort up. If Kimi can provide some of the spark he showed on occasion in 2015, he can push Vettel and with the right package, they could worry the Silver Arrows."

Continuing their 'anything you can do, we can do better' spat with big brother Red Bull Racing, Toro Rosso have revealed a car even more dark blue than their sibling outfit.

According to the team it's a 'testing livery', and we can only assume it's particularly testing for Christian Horner, whose plan to be the most dark blue, innovative, aggressive team in F1 history has been scuppered at its very first test.

They Say: "From #STR11outoftheblue to 2016 #STR11 livery! Unveiling: 1st March 8.15am."

We say: "Fallout 4's November 10th release date had a detrimental impact on the work rate of the team's art department, who hope to have the livery finished by the second test."

Quote Down the Pub: "Though the livery designers have been napping, it looks like the engineers have been hard at work and we could see another strong season. If it hadn't been for bad luck, Carlos Sainz Jr. would have had the raceday edge on his celebrity teammate Max Verstappen, and it'll be great to see two hungry youngsters racing with more experience in 2016."

Williams have followed Force India's example by revealing last year's livery. And last year's car. And last year's driver line up.

Martini stripes are always a crowd pleaser, and with Williams there's been no exception. It's really hard to find anything else to say about this one, because it's mostly white. I'll just list some things that are white: snow, the Ferrari from Miami Vice, paper, old Macs, cocaine, clouds on a sunny day.

They Say:"We started design work on the car earlier than normal [yes, 2014]… the car we are launching today is by no means the final product."

We Say: "It's nice, isn't it? It's a good-looking car; it'd look nice as a small model above your desk."

Quote Down the Pub: "Williams' strategy of sticking to the tried and tested isn't necessarily a bad idea, but they'll need to get back to the front again in 2016. Their 2014 promise and pace tailed off in 2015, and they really need to bring success back to Grove."

@jakeyorath