The FIA is planning to table talks with Formula 1 teams over the potential to have more separable liveries in 2025 to counter the growing trend of similar-looking cars.
The ballooning weight on the current generation cars has seen more exposed carbon prevalent on the 2024 creations as sides strive to find marginal gains over rivals.
That has created the added complication that several teams’ design schemes have become too alike on television images with a reduction in paint on their machines.
This issue has been exacerbated when there are night races taking place – such as the season-opening round in Bahrain – making it harder for fans to distinguish cars.
According to Autosport, the Aston Martin AMR24 and Mercedes W15, along with the Williams FW46 and RB VCARB01, provide the most prominent cases this season.
However, the FIA is prepared to hold discussions to discover a solution to the problem, with the topic scheduled to be brought up at the next F1 Commission meeting.
“As always in F1, it is a bit more complicated than maybe meets the eye,” FIA Single Seater Director Nikolas Tombazis told Autosport.
“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.
“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.”
Tombazis has stressed that the FIA is aiming to ensure this is achieved via discussions with the incumbent teams rather than implementing an unpopular rule change.
“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.”
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