2014 Car Launches

[Greenlantern101]

Somewhere to post images and dates of the 2014 car launches.

First date I have seen is McLaren on 25th January. Rumours are its orange.
http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/mclaren-could-launch-orange-2014-car-report/

 

[rufus_mcdufus]

Will it stay papaya orange? They've done this quite often and I've always been a little disappointed when the red/silver colour scheme returns.

 

[mjo]

I hope it is orange - we have too many silver/grey cars on the grid.

 

[sushifiesta]

Personally I'll be surprised if they change the colour scheme. Strangely, for such a fickle thing, I think it would remove a lot of what's left of whatever feelings I had for McLaren. They've been my favourite team since I really remember first watching F1 properly, in the Coulthard/Hakkinen days, but they've lost the likes of Raikkonen, Alonso and Hamilton in (fairly) recent times and personally there's just not much left for me to get excited about. If they get rid of the silver as well then I don't think they will feel like McLaren to me at all any more.

Anyway, the season's barely over and already it's only a few weeks until we start seeing the new cars. Great! Well, great until we see how bad they sound and how ugly and slow they are...

 

[Greenlantern101]

When they got rid of the Marlboro colours and went silver I hated it. Happy for them to dump the silver and go old school. The orange is cool.

1970 McLaren M14A

 

[F1Yorkshire]

Red and white were the Marlborough colours. Silver were the West/Mercedes colours. Generally the colour of a car is determined by sponsors. Are Vodafone continuing to sponsor the mac? Which would mean red, or Santander which would also mean red.

Orange mobile phones are now EE so they're not suitable to be a McLaren sponsor who would influence their colours. What other companies would want to put orange branding on a car other than McLaren themselves? Works for Ferrari but does the car manufacturing side of the company make enough to support the F1 side?

 

[Josephiah]

Will Vodafone let them go orange?
(semi-serious question!)

EDIT: Damn, beaten to it by Mr Yorkie.

 

[sushifiesta]

As far as I understand it the Vodafone/McLaren partnership is now finished.

 

[teabagyokel]

There's one problem with those sponsors...

...they cannot go red. Which is why we had chrome when Voda started.

 

[no-FIAt-please]

How anyone cannot love the Chrome/Rocket Red livery is beyond me. Absolutely beautiful and I will sorely miss it next year

 

[rufus_mcdufus]

The silver/red looks great close up or in official pics but doesn't work for me so well at a distance. Might be the high reflectivity. I prefer the primary colours of red/white. Orange has been devalued a little in F1 in recent years by Spyker!

 

[GermanF1]

...and Arrows

 

[teabagyokel]

That's like saying Ferrari shouldn't use red because of Scuderia Italia.

 

[GermanF1]

...and Marussia

 

[Mephistopheles]

Did nobody actually read the article or take notice during the season Vodaphone ended their sponsorship with McLaren at the end of the season and we have known this would be case for about six month, McLaren say they have a new main sponsor but have not announced who it is yet which is probably why they will launch the car in orange to keep the sponsors identity a secret until both parties are ready.

 

[no-FIAt-please]

I'd be surprised if a new sponsor isn't announced either before or at the launch of the new car. For all we know the new sponsor could also use red, so McLaren might stick with their current livery. Especially seeing as how they're still using Mercedes engines for one more season, back to white/red for 2015 and Honda I think.

 

[Bushi]

Hope they go back to the black and silver livery, their orange livery was imo very ugly.

 

[Mephistopheles]

Well it most probably will be red and white for 2015 or maybe Honda will want to bring back that earth car design...

 

[teabagyokel]

Button would love that...

...or retire!

 

[teabagyokel]

In fact, I think the trend has been away from sponsor-orientated livery for about the last decade.

• Red Bull/Toro Rosso - they're generally their own sponsors so a weird case, but just slight modifications for Infiniti/CEPSA
• Ferrari - Red forever
• Mercedes - Silver with slight modification for Petronas
• Lotus/Caterham - Fought long court battle to take historic Lotus liveries despite sponsors' colours
• Force India - National flag of India
• Sauber - No sponsor has plain grey as a corporate colour
• Williams - Using blue and white colour scheme regardless of sponsor
• Marussia - Kept Virgin scheme after Virgin departed

Really, McLaren (& the odd case of Red Bull) is the only sponsor-scheme left.