With the 2023 cars being launched left, right and centre I thought I’d do a mid-way review ranking the 5 cars that we’ve seen so far.

Alfa Romeo

The reveal of the Alfa Romeo is probably the biggest livery change that we’ve seen so far… and it works. The bigger the change, the more risk you take as there is a greater chance that the changes will not go down well, but Alfa Romeo have been able to improve on their car from last year. A concern that I have with the 2023 liveries is teams using a lot of exposed carbon in an attempt to save weight, which may not work with their cars, however the exposed carbon fiber on the Alfa Romeo pairs perfectly with the deep red covering the rest of the car, creating a more sleek looking C43.

Alpha Tauri

Second on the list is Alpha Tauri. The team have stuck with the same design as 2022 and most of the same colours but the pop of red adds a new dimension to the car that makes it stand out a bit more. The Orlen sponsor has elevated the colour pallet of the Alpha Tauri as whilst the 2022 car was a solid livery it didn’t have anything to make it stand out from the others. I think that the red works well in combination with the white and navy and it’s not too overbearing, it has been used to colour block against the traditional Alpha Tauri colours and the positioning of the red on the halo is perhaps the only thing that I would change about this design. Whilst the vibrant burst of colour does work well it may have blended in better to the overall car if it was gradually phased into the halo.

Redbull

Redbull make it to the half way point as I don’t think anyone was surprised with the reveal of their 2023 livery which was the same iconic look that they’ve had for years. There is practically no difference between the 2022 and 2023 livery but the Redbull design has become a staple in Formula 1 and there is no doubt that they will be easily identifiable on track. Although the livery may have been predictable, I don’t think the stills do it any justice as on track the Redbull is one of the best cars to look at. The livery was exactly what most people expected, nothing more, nothing less.

Haas

Haas are next on the list; they’ve also gone from light to dark but to me this doesn’t work quite as well as the Alfa Romeo. I do like the Haas car but I’m still not sure if I prefer this over the 2022 car, I think that the colours don’t blend into each other as well as they could have and the carbon fiber leaves the car looking slightly incomplete. It may look better on track but for now this one is a bit up in the air for me.

Williams

Finally, Williams close off the list with their 2023 car. I’ve put Williams last as, whilst I did think that the Duracell roll hoop is one of the best designs that we’ve seen on any of the 2023 cars so far, I think that so much more could’ve been done to make the car look more exciting. It may be that Williams are now going for a consistent look but with their new sponsor, Gulf, they had the opportunity to completely reinvent their car. A perfect example of this is McLaren’s special Gulf livery in Monaco 2021, which went down extremely well, now I’m not saying that Williams should have copied this but it could’ve provided an idea of the options available for their 2023 car.

That’s my list so far, I expect that this may change by the end of the week, as the final car launch is set to take place on Friday, but we’ll have to wait and see if any other team can top Alfa Romeo.