It’s Friday, or Fri-yay in some parts of the corporate world, and that means a list of questionable quality and theme to bolster the quality of content here at The Gurgler for later in the week. In this edition we offer some F1 inspired top-fivery, with our look at Distinctive F1 Liveries.
Given we are currently in the middle of the launching period of 2026 F1 cars, it is a convenient bit of timing and inspiration to have a look back at some of the most distinctive F1 Liveries from history.
Distinctive F1 liveries doesn’t necessarily mean all good or all bad, just ones that quickly came to mind when assembling this Top Five Friday list.
So enjoy a taste of yesterday year, before the latest fashion in F1 is totally revealed.
Five Distinctive F1 Liveries
1980’s-1990’s MARLBORO McLAREN
You can’t have this livery anymore due to bans on cigarette advertising, which is a shame, because it’s distinctive and memorable. It also helped that it was more often than not a winner too.
Throwing in for interest’s sake here is the 1986 McLaren which they turned yellow for a race for Keke Rosberg and for Marlboro Lights. Figures though, as Rosberg was a noted smoker. Famously stubbing out a cigarette moments before jumping in a car and setting the fastest qualifying lap that stood for over a decade.
1970’s-1980’s JOHN PLAYER SPECIAL LOTUS
Another from the cigarette era, but another distinctive winner.
Cars have turned black in recent years to save weight on paint, or some try to imitate this classic, but none have done it so well.
But even Lotus didn’t appreciate the beauty dropping the famous black and gold for a few seasons in the early 1980’s, some of which led to some awful liveries too.
1997 JORDAN F1
Yellow F1 cars are usually distinctive, and awful, but this 1997 Jordan was distinctive and had a feature not really seen in F1 before.
The 1997 Jordan was yet another cigarette sponsored vehicle, most of them were in the gloriously smokey 1990’s, but the first car of the sponsorship in 1996 was a very bland, gold coloured car which better represented the cigarette company but also was more in line with a luxury taxi company than F1.
For 1997 not only did the car turn a bright yellow, but it was turned into a deadly snake, with the coolest nosecone in F1 history.
Sadly they changed to a hornet in 1998, which wasn’t quite as good, but they did win their first race that first season and almost a Championship in the second.
1985 TOLEMAN / 1986 BENETTON
In 1985 the Benetton clothing company took on the sponsorship of the Toleman team, a team the year before rookie Ayrton Senna set the world on fire with. But Benetton didn’t really get much bang early that season as they didn’t make the first three races as they had no tyres. When they did they launched a livery that featured random country’s flags all over it, under the United Colours of Benetton banner.
Benetton took it further the next year by buying the Toleman team and renaming it Benetton and coming up with an even more distinctive colour scheme. They also won their first race as a team in 1986 with Gerhard Berger.
2007 HONDA
Most of the distinctive F1 cars so far have been good, so we had to offer up one terrible effort, and the worst we could think of was the 2007 Honda.
Honda, which used to be BAR, which used to be Tyrrell, won their first race in a long time in 2006 with Jenson Button, and had been on an upward curve for the past few seasons, so entered 2007 with a bit of confidence.
Then they unveiled the 2007 paint job with a giant earth on the engine cover and not much else. The idea was admirable, calling out environmental concerns etc, but the end result was awful, one of the worst.
