Livery of the Day – Nissan Motorsport ‘Norton Hornets’

2013 saw some huge changes in the V8 Supercars championship. After decades of a two make competition, two new brands joined the series, with Mercedes-Benz entering the E63, and Nissan entering the Altima. Whilst neither car would achieve anywhere near the success of their Ford and Holden counterparts and would leave the series within a few years, Nissan did at least bring us some memorable liveries.

Whilst the Todd and Rick Kelly Nissans retained their Jack Daniel’s liveries through their switch from Commodore to Altima, their other two cars brought in a new sponsor in Norton. The digital security company adorned the cars in their logos and distinct yellow and black colours, giving them the nickname the Norton Hornets.

Early in the season the cars ran a majority yellow design, featuring just a black and white stripe along each side, as well as black roof. It was quite basic, but the bright yellow was enough for the two cars to stand out from the crowd (don’t forget the ekol Commodore!), especially being towards the back of the grid a lot of the time!

It didn’t take long for them to make some changes to the livery though, and they moved to a new design featuring a more cleverly placed Norton logo and some thick diagonal black lines with piping that frame the logo well too. It was certainly an improvement and a more distinct and unique livery to the one presented at the beginning of the season.

With the livery change came some success too. While Nissan were consistently poor throughout their tenure in the V8 Supercars Championship, only cracking the top 10 a handful of times in 2013 specifically, they had a major and memorable breakthrough at Winton that year. It all came together perfectly that weekend, with James Moffat leading Michael Caruso home in a Norton Hornet 1-2 finish in the first race of the weekend. It was the most unlikely of results and would be one of just three victories a Nissan take in their seven season stint in the series. Did the livery have anything to do with it? Unlikely, but it’s the bright yellow livery was one of the more memorable parts of Altima’s journey in Australian Motorsport.

Round-Up – 2021 Supercars Field

Another season is upon us and fingers crossed we can get through this one without interruptions. Not a tonne of big surprises on the livery front, but let’s check out this seasons designs.

Brad Jones Racing

Looks like R&J Batteries will be sponsoring Percat throughout 2021 in what is a pretty middle of the road livery to kick us off. Some standard colours in white/red/black, placed on the car in not so ground breaking fashion, but certainly in no way ugly. Some nice flashes of red and white on the front lights and bumper.

Majority white along the side suits this one well, especially with the sponsor naturally being red & black. The large spike along the side from the bumper works well to fill that space on the left, but interferes with the main sponsor logo a bit on the right – kind of annoying but not the end of the world.

★★★

As for Hazelwood’s #14, it looks as though the sponsor will change race by race, but for Bathurst it was a Dunlop Super Dealer livery. It’s a pleasant mainly yellow effort, with similar flashes to the R&J batteries livery. It’s just a nice shade of yellow, one that doesn’t need a lot of help to make it look good.

For that reason I’m glad there are some of the red and black flashes, but not taking up too much space on the car. I’m not sure if this style of design is a bit dated? Either way, the colour does most of the work in making it look good. Glad to see black rims too.

★★★

CoolDrive Racing

After years of driving around the back of the field in a Brad Jones Commodore, Tim Blanchard has grabbed a Mustang and immediately found some competitiveness in 2021! It was great, if not unusual, to see the familiar CoolDrive colours toward the front of the grid. The wonderful metallic blue is back which is fantastic, and with the amount of the secondary flat light blue colour reduced on the car, the metallic blue has been able to shine through even more.

The design is very simple – a thick white line along the entire side of the car, bordered some of that lighter blue. Really uncomplicated, but the real beauty is obvious once the sun hits that metallic blue. It does look a little too linear though, and perhaps a slight angling of the lines and logo might have made it look a little speedier, as can be seen on many of the other cars. Another contributor to this may be that it’s a little text heavy – perhaps it does miss the graphic CoolDrive logo which has been on the side on previous renditions.

★★★☆

Erebus Boost Mobile & WD-40 Racing

It’s very odd to see Erebus without Penrite, and it’s also odd (albeit not the first time) to see Boost Mobile sponsoring two cars from different teams. Which car has the best Boost livery? Spoiler alert – it’s this one. This livery sticks mainly to charcoal and orange with some flashes of white, which is a great combo. It’s a very modern looking livery with the pattern that isn’t overwhelming, whilst the orange & white flashes add some necessary colour to the car.

It’s pretty clean despite its complex pattern, rightly pushing all focus to the sponsors logo from a distance, whilst the intricacies really make their mark from close up.

★★★★

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This one should look pretty familiar for any recent IndyCar fans! Alexander Rossi has raced in a similar livery on several occasions; the colours translate really well onto a racing car. The WD-40 logo is simple and clean, which looks especially nice on the bonnet – it fills the space perfectly.

As for the design itself, it mirrors the Boost car aside from the base pattern, but it doesn’t suffer from the flat blue or lack of complexity. It’s actually refreshing to see a team template look so different from one car to the other.

★★★★

IRWIN Racing & DEWALT Racing

Some slight changes to the IRWIN Tool cars this year, although it keeps the same aesthetic as last season. A lot of yellow has come off the car leaving it mainly blue, so it could be a little difficult to differentiate this and the DW40 car above from a distance. A key difference in the Bunnings Trade section, which I’d say intentionally sticks out like a sore thumb. It’s not the nicest combination of colours but could have been more palatable if it didn’t extend above the window and just follow the lines of the car to the rear wing.

My mind may be playing tricks on me, but it gives me vibes of a couple of other liveries; both the Ambrose Pirtek cars of the year 2000s and Winterbottom’s own Orrcon liveries of the late 2000s. I looked back and it might just be the blues and yellows, because they aren’t as alike as I was thinking!

★★☆

The DeWalt car carries a lot of similar elements to last year’s livery, in fact, bar some sponsors, the whole front end is almost exactly the same. The rest of the car has some other changes which I wouldn’t call evolutionary so much as shuffling the deck. The balance of the colours is still pretty close to 50/50, just some lines have changed orientation.

Really, you’d only notice the changes if you put the liveries side by side, so take a look below. At this point, I’m not sure why they’d have spent time making such unnoticeable changes – even I’d advocate to just use the same design, and I don’t think I’ve ever said the before in my life.

★★★★

Matt Stone Racing

There has been quite a bit of experimentation with the Unit livery in recent seasons, but it sadly looks like they’ve settled on this black and gold colour scheme. Not to say black and gold aren’t a terrific combo, just that this dull shade of gold against the black means it doesn’t pop at all, and is a little lacklustre where it should really excel. I’m sure I’ve been through this all before, but the use of a lighter, more saturated (or a hue closer to orange than green) shade of gold like in this crude edit would have been way better. Save that, just reverting to the awesome first Unit livery which was short lived!

It’s a shame because the design itself is actually really good and has great potential. It does a lovely job of framing the car and sponsor, and the use of gaps of increasing size along the gold sections is very nice, especially on the bonnet and front bumper.

★★★

The YellowCover livery continues to be an uninspiring use of some fairly original colours. Black and yellow are pretty common of late, but the addition of orange give Matt Stone Racing a chance to do something completely different. That said, they’ve churned out another mainly black livery with some intertwining lines of each colour along the length of the car.

It’s a fairly generic design, but they could have got away with it with better use of colour. The sponsors and their placement too, don’t make it feel like a top category livery. It gives off backmarker or Super 2 vibes if I’m honest. Splash some more of the orange and yellow on the car and I’m sure we’d get something cool and original.

★★☆

Mobil 1 Appliances Online / Middy’s Racing

It was always going to be tough to beat what were some almost perfect liveries in 2020, so WAU have done a great job to make them so different and still so good in 2021. The base colours interestingly have inverted from white to black which makes for an strong contrast against the Middy’s pink. It’s not that I have an issue with though, it’s the blue the separates the black and the pink. This is obviously a requirement for Middy’s branding, but it’s a shame a different shade couldn’t have been used, to separate the black and pink in a more complementary fashion.

Come to think of it, perhaps a slightly thinner blue line may have worked better even with that shade of blue. There are also some really nice touches to this livery, mainly the pinstriping behind the rear windows on the sides, and a similar pattern which fades the pink to black just at the end of the rear door. All make for really nice overall livery, but all of works much better on the car below.

★★★★

On the other side of the garage, the Appliances Online car has done a much better job with this design, if not perfected it. It’s simply down to using more black in comparison, and without the need to show off a third colour. The Middy’s car would have been much better placed following this theme, with mostly black on the side and just the pink highlights, and using only flashes of the blue elsewhere on the car.

It’s quite a striking effort with the almost two tone, highly contrasting colours. I don’t think I have a bad word to say about this one, just a wonderful application of design and colour. Great to see WAU could pull it of two years in a row.

★★★★★

Monster Energy & Boost Mobile Racing

Well it’s evidently clear that Tickford and Monster are quite happy having the same livery year on year. The good news is, a plain black livery can’t really get old and daggy, but I’d really have appreciated some sort of an evolution. There’s a lot you can do with it, whether it’s more green accents, or even a mix of matte and gloss black.

Either way, it’s simplistic nature allows it to still look good, where keeping a busy livery for this many years would have become old, fast.

★★★

So here’s the other Boost car on the grid, the less impressive effort of the two. If you removed all the silver on the car and kept the orange flashes, this would have been an awesome livery. Instead, the silver really dulls it down, makes it a tonne less aggressive, and overall less attractive to view.

That’s really the only detriment to this livery, but it’s a huge one. The other is possibly the orange line on the side jutting behind the Boost logo, but that’s the consequence of getting your logo to be as big as possible on the car. Castrol green on the wing is also a bad clash – whilst it’s a sponsor across both cars, it would have looked far better if the green didn’t cover the whole end plate.

★★

Penrite Racing & NED Whisky Racing

It was an absolute shock, SHOCK I tell you, to see that Reynold’s ten year contract with Erebus ended early. With that, he’s found a new home at Kelly Racing and sponsor Penrite has followed him across. They’ve taken a more traditional approach with this livery, with classic little red and blue sections as opposed to the modern smoky design of 2020.

It’s not the most cohesive design because while the coloured lines on the side flow from one end to the other, the big black gaps between them look like two completely separate sections. It’s also very busy with graphics and sponsor logos, probably too cluttered for my liking. Penrite are still as patriotic as ever, albeit toned down slightly. Taking a little while to get used to seeing Penrite on a Mustang, but it’s a decent effort.

★★★☆

I was initially a little annoyed they changed the Ned livery! It was really simple and quite beautiful last season, making use and showing off of their very nice logo, but it’s taken a side step for 2021 with a lot more black added to the fold. The amount of gold has also been beefed up, but still used to smartly frame the larger white and black sections on the car.

The increased black was probably necessary to help add some new sponsors to the car, such as Penrite above, but the way they’ve used it has worked out pretty well. A side effect of this is whilst the Ned logo is the same size as last season, the added black sections make it look smaller and take attention away from it. The good thing is that they’ve used the right shade of gold, where the Unit livery really suffers in comparison.

★★★★

Red Bull Ampol Racing

At initial glance this might appear to be just like the last few Red Bull liveries, but with Holden ceasing and Ampol pouring money into their rebrand, there are quite a few changes to this car. For one, they’ve stuck with one shade of blue this time as opposed to having multiple lighter shades on the car. The jagged design evolved to a cleaner look too.

The biggest change is in colour, with Ampol bringing a lot more red to the car that it has seen in recent seasons. There’s a lot of red many sponsor logos, heavily on the rear wing, and also framing the side and front of the car. It’s a pretty good effort and matches better than the Holden logo did last year, but I’ll never be a big fan of two big sponsor logos fighting for attention on the side of the same car. You almost need a BAR style zipper livery for Red Bull these days, one side for Red Bull and one side for Ampol or whoever else is the major partner that season.

★★★☆

SCT Logistics & Coca-Cola Racing

Jack Smith’s back for another go in his SCT Logistics car and whilst few have high hopes for his performances, his livery has taken a step in the right direction. They’ve simplified it by taking out the large black section on the rear, which has cleaned it up immensely and improved it greatly in doing so.

The SCT logo matches the dual stripes along the side of the car perfectly, and whilst the front end hasn’t changed at all really, the whole car is in a wonderful harmony now that the black section has been removed. I used to hate mainly white cars, but I’m a bit of a sucker for their cleanliness and simplicity nowadays. Heck, even the bubbles look alright!

★★★★☆

When we heard a Coca Cola (or Cocla-Cola according to the Supercars website) car would be on the grid last season, I think this is what most of us would have imagined! Last years attempt (for Team Sydney) was nice albeit quite plain, however, the minimalist recreation of their iconic can design is exactly what needed to be done to this car.

You don’t become the most recognisable brand in the world without some beautiful branding, so this livery really is a no brainer and was always destined to look good. No overcomplicated tricks or flashes required on this one and thankfully the low density of sponsors accentuates the design and doesn’t look too empty in the process. I may have rated this one too high last year, but as it’s improved, there’s only one rating I can give it.

★★★★★

Shell V-Power Racing Team

If there’s one team that cares less about updating its livery than the Monster team, it’s the Shell V-Power gang. Apart from literally two or three sponsors, the livery is identical to last season.

It’s certainly become an iconic livery at this point, but that doesn’t mean it won’t wear out. I for one am just about over this design, so time for it to be spiced up.

★★★

Team Sydney

Team Sydney has decked out both cars in fluorescent yellow this season! It’s quite nice actually, refreshing to see an unusual colour like this in the mix. It stands out from the pack, and with a colour like this, it’s the bright yellow that makes the impact for the livery as opposed to the design itself.

Both cars use the same spiky (for lack of a word) design, but the black Local Legends logo fares far better on the bright background compared to the blue and red PremiAir Hire logo. Clearly, neither sponsor paid the team enough to use their own brand colours on either car. That said, I’m glad about it as we get to see some funky colours on the grid to mix things up.

★★★★

Truck Assist Racing

Last and in fact least, it’s the big grey Truck Assist machine. Whilst the bright yellow colour is makes the Team Sydney liveries, it’s the dull grey that completely detracts from this one. It’s funny how just a couple of shades of grey away, the Boost Erebus machine looks fantastic. With an almost identical colour palette, Erebus chosen the rights greys and oranges, whilst Truck Assist have not. It’s very difficult to describe what’s wrong with this grey. A little darker and it would be closer to a charcoal colour which would be fine. A little lighter and it would have a flat light grey look which is pretty neat and popular on road cars these days. Along with that, the placement of orange on the car doesn’t really spark joy either.

While I’m a fan of painted rims, it’s almost too much for this car and white may have suited better, although the white piping added this season doesn’t help the cause. I did like the nod to the Falcon on the Bathurst livery, but that won’t stay for the rest of the season either, and of course the Isuzu red clashes like no tomorrow. A bit of a bummer to end on!

★☆

On to the awards!

Best Looker Award – Mobil 1 Appliances Online

Whilst I gave both the Coke and the Appliances Online cars 5 stars, there’s definitely more time, effort and precision that has gone into the latter, so it get’s my top pick!

Least Attractive Award – Truck Assist Racing

It’s a double wooden spoon for the Truck Assist team, and sadly they’ve regressed if I so say so myself. Time for a total refresh – I’m totally available for some mock-ups guys.

Fear of Change Award – Monster Energy & Shell V-Power Racing

Some people don’t like change, perhaps it’s fear, perhaps it’s laziness. Either way, these teams may never change their designs again as long as their major sponsors to change.

Backup Safety Car Award – Team Sydney

They may not have flashing lights, but if the safety car went caput, maybe Supercars officials would ask Coulthard or Jacobsen to lead the field in their fluro yellow cars.

Out of Place Award – Bunnings Trade (IRWIN Racing)

It’s tough to blend teal and royal blue at the best of times, but it doesn’t look like IRWIN Racing went too far out of their way to get Bunnings Trade to match the rest of the Irwin livery.

Round-Up – 2020 Supercars Field

We started the season with a bombshell, that at the end of the year, the Holden name would be discontinued by GM. While the ‘Commodore’ will run in Supercars until the end of next year, there’s plenty of uncertainty moving forward. There are rumours of Mostert helping to bring BMW to Walkinshaw, and everyone continues to bang on about a KIA Stinger Supercar, but at the end of the day a major overhaul for the series is likely given the biggest (and most favoured) manufacturer in the sport is leaving. All we can do in the meantime is watch the racing that we love, while it lasts, and admire these cars for better or worse.

Boost Mobile Racing

It hasn’t taken long for a Boost Mobile car’s season to get flushed down the toilet. For unknown reasons, Courtney has split with Team Sydney after just one race, but controversy is never far away when Adderton is involved. Either way, they were running silver Boost livery with a similar theme to those that came before it.

It’s comparatively weaker than last year’s GRM livery, mainly because the black livery looked more aggressive. This one is a lot simpler, which is more detrimental on a lighter car than a darker car. Let’s see where Courtney and Boost end up next!

★★★☆

Brad Jones Racing

Percat looks to be back to his livery changing ways, starting of with a clean Mobil livery for the Superloop 500. I wonder how much time and resource BJR put into designing and applying a different livery each race?

There isn’t that much going on, just a large blue section toward the rear and along the edge of the roof and bonnet. The fading red line is a great idea, but makes the Mobil logo look way off centre because it’s avoiding the series wide sticker on the driver side door. This lopsided look could have been avoided with a parallel red line above, which would have framed the logo far better.

★★★

On the other side of the garage, Todd Hazelwood in running in Plus Fitness colours, with a cool fading blue to black design along the side of the car. This is a great effect, but I think they’ve missed a great opportunity to extend this to the bumper, as the white takes away from the car’s identity. Makes it a little generic and bland from the front.

It looks fantastic from the side, the fade from dark to darker is really nice, as are the white spikes that curve up into the empty space. The orange flashes are a great touch too, especially on the headlights, making the car look extra aggressive. Just wish there was less white on the front of the car.

★★★★

Castrol Racing

Kelly Racing had a big task over the summer, moving from Nissan to Ford, although downsizing from four to two cars would have helped. There’s also some continuity, Castrol sticking with Rick Kelly and painting a Mustang green. They’ve also stuck with a jagged livery theme, although it’s executed far better on this occasion.

No BP Ultimate on the car helps significantly by removing a colour clash, as does the toning down of the red on the car overall – it was a little rough to look at when overlapping the green. The small black sections toward the bottom of the car work well too, and aren’t bad on the roof and bonnet either.

★★★★

DEWALT Racing

Team 18 expanded to two cars this season, with Scott Pye joining the new DEWALT Racing. DEWALT has brought black and yellow back to the team; Preston Hire used these colours successfully with Holdsworth a few years ago. It’s a strong, near two tone effort with a fairly standard spiky design. The design and main logo are lined up well which is aesthetically pleasing.

There is not a whole lot to it. Yellow and black is a great combo and everything is planned and laid out well.

★★★★

IRWIN Racing

Winterbottom is back in the IRWIN car this year, and the livery is only subtly different. There are parts I prefer about this one, such as the removal of the white sections, and parts of last year’s one I like better, such as the jagged, broken lines along the side of the car.

If I had to choose one, I’d choose the 2020 car. It’s super clean and although the designs are different, the teams’ two cars match each other well, which is ironic considering they are competitors. Once again, Team 18 don’t disappoint.

★★★★

Matt Stone Racing

Matt Stone Racing also moved to two cars in 2020 and whilst they’ve retained Unit as a sponsor, they’ve unfortunately gone for a new theme with the livery. Last year’s almost all silver livery was my pick of the bunch, but moved from silver to gold. It’s a slightly too cool (rather than warm) and dark gold, which doesn’t really shine unless you catch it in the right angle, in the sun. Paired with black, it looks quite dull in most cases.

The main Unit logo is well framed by a fairly standard design, with white a silver being used to separate the black and gold sections. I can’t help but compare it to the 2019 livery – it just isn’t on the same level. Sometimes simple is better! That said, not bad at all, but some better choice in colour at the least could have improved this one significantly.

★★★

The other MSR car is piloted by Garry Jacobson. It’s also mainly black, but supported by some vibrant yellow and orange. This helps it pop out in the field, distinguishing itself from the competition.

I’m not a huge fan of the design and how it curves on the bonnet and bumper, and the side is a little bit unimaginative – while the colours stand out to me, the design doesn’t. It’s pros and cons are the opposite to the Unit car. Just lacking some oomph and personality.

★★★

Milwaukee Racing

Milwaukee have gone for an absolute Mustang classic – the double racing stripes. It doesn’t get much simpler! With some pinstriping on the sides, you can’t really go wrong, especially when the bumper sponsor doesn’t interfere.

The side also harks back to a prior generation, with one fat stripe coming from the wheel arch on an angle, pinstriped on one side. That’s pretty much it! It detracts as little from the main sponsors as possible and as plain as it is, looks good from all angles. Could there have been a couple of other additions to make it more interesting? Yes. However, I’d rather clean and simple than a little too complicated.

★★★☆

Mobil 1 Appliances Online Racing

After losing a sponsor mid way through last year and bringing some new ones in for the latter part, WAU have settled on Mobil 1 as a primary sponsor, with a different secondary sponsor on each car. Whilst both cars share the same template, they looks drastically different thanks to these secondary sponsors.

The blue used by Appliances Online pairs very well with Mobil’s blue, as well as with the white on the front of the car. The design is very well thought out and I love the clever transition from dark blue to light blue to white, using the thinning diagonal lines of colour. The parallel white lines on the bottom of the side also work really well, and look great cutting off the light blue sections. The extra flashes and lines of colour about the car are great and I don’t really have any complaints about this one, apart from perhaps the pin striping on the bonnet being a little too thin on the inside.

★★★★★

Mobil 1 Middy’s Racing

Pretty much everything that was said about the Appliances Online car applies to the Middy’s car. The pink is a fantastic contrast to the team’s other car and pairs well with the blue and white on this one.

The only issue I have with this one is the shade of blue used it too light. A darker blue would have paired better with the pink, such as in this example. Apart from that, it has all the great qualities of the other WAU car. A great effort from the team.

★★★★☆

Monster Energy Racing

Sadly, little imagination used by the team at Monster Energy Racing. For the fourth season in a row they are going with a plain black livery with Monster logos on it.

I apparently quite liked this last year, but very much indifferent this year. It’s a little boring without any extra touches year on year. Some sort of evolution would be nice after this many years of no change.

★★☆

NED Racing

On the other hand it’s all change at Kelly Racing, with NED jumping on board Andre Heimgartner’s new Mustang. The livery definitely brings back Jim Beam Falcon memories with the colour scheme, although the design is understandably more modern and sophisticated. The bonnet section follows the body shape perfectly, with the gold lines framing the black part well.

The logo has been integrated on the side of the car seamlessly, using its own design as a priority and blending it in with the rest of the car well. Perhaps it separates the gold lines a little too much, and maybe a plain black and white livery would have been neat, but the extra flashes of colour don’t hurt it at all.

★★★★

Penrite Racing

Something new again for Penrite, this time going for a smokey theme. I was initially quite pessimistic as it looked very busy and hard to distinguish, but the closer you look the better it gets. There’s an Aussie flag in there, getting all patriotic alongside Penrite’s gold, and the smoke effect does flow very nicely from the front to the rear of the car.

The Penrite logo works better than in recent years as there are no solid colours to harshly contrast against the logo. I’d previously said the logo looked dated, but appears as though it was simply everything else on the canvas that was creating that illusion. It’s an attractive, modern effort, that looks great despite my usual traditional tastes.

★★★★☆

Red Bull Holden Racing Team

The trickiest part of Red Bull Holden the last few years has been how to balance both of those logos on the car at once. The positioning hasn’t changed this year, but they’ve gone with a white background for Holden this time, keeping most of the rest understandably blue. The fragmented design is actually very nice from the front where Holden doesn’t interfere.

The symmetry makes the front look great, but the side looks a little random with perhaps a few too many little bits and pieces jutting around. Holden also takes up a lot of space on the side, and despite trying to make one cohesive livery, I just don’t think they gel well together. I guess this won’t be a problem next year anyway.

★★★☆

SCT Logistics Racing

Animosity with whether Jack Smith should be in the series aside, the SCT Logistics Commodore looks pretty good. You’ve got the standard black, white and red, the logo placed well on both the side and bonnet, and support of some speedy red stripes over the car.

I especially like the bottom most red line which travels all the way from the rear, up from the splitter and along the bonnet and the roof. It does a great job of framing the car and its aggressive angles. The secondary thick red lines also work well and although the black section toward the rear is a little generic, it fits in with the theme and certainly isn’t offensive. That said, his 2019 Super2 livery was a stunner! Shame this couldn’t be carried over.

★★★★

Shell V-Power Racing

If we’re yawning at Monster Energy Racing, we’re definitely yawning at Shell V-Power Racing. They’ve decided to go with another year in their weakest livery since 2016, which I don’t think ever suited the Mustang as well as it did the Falcon. The way the yellow and white droops off at the front wheel arch is the opposite of racy if you ask me.

So the same again, but I guess a fitting way to see off Scotty as he competes in his last season in Supercars before embarking on what looks to be an open wheel adventure in the USA.

★★★

Supercheap Auto Racing

Jack LeBrocq has joined Tickford for 2020 and has jumped straight into the Supercheap Auto car. The livery looks a little nicer than its predecessor, but still lacks the punch that the yellow had given it in previous years. As it stands, there are a lot of other logos from other sponsors that really take away from the cars identity, and make it look like a bit of a mish-mash.

The side is plain but clean, but overall it looks like Supercheap has paid for the sponsorship, then sold off bits and pieces of the livery to the highest bidders. Perhaps a slight improvement on last year with a few more sponsors fitting into the colour scheme, but lots of room for improvement.

★★★

Team Cooldrive

Macauley Jones is back in the CoolDrive Commodore this year, a car that never seems to be in the top half of the field. It’s a shame, because it’s consistently one of the best looking. It’s a similar effort this year, with the brilliant metallic blue supported by a light blue this time, and a neat white stripe along the side.

It’s almost like they’ve flipped the white and light blue from last year, but it’s good to see some form of evolution as opposed to stagnation. The main logo placement is great as always, and nothing messy about the other sponsors either. Solid again.

★★★★

Team Sydney

Chris Pither somehow snagged a full time drive for 2020, but who knows how long that will last with Team Sydney! Now every fibre in my body tells me I shouldn’t like this. It’s plain, basically no actual design apart from the logos – should be boring right? Maybe it’s nostalgia or maybe it’s just a livery I’ve wanted to see for some reason. I like it.

There’s nothing fancy about the red they’ve used, but it is stunningly vibrant. The Coca Cola logo is one of the most recognisable in the world and doesn’t look out of place anywhere. Every brand is on board, making it a perfectly uniform two tone livery. The cheeky branding on the bonnet is clever and relatable. Everything on this livery works. I can’t imagine it would have the same impact if used for another year, but for now, it’s great.

★★★★☆

Truck Assist Racing

Finally, Truck Assist has joined Tickford, replacing Bottle-O which had backed the team for many a year. Out goes the bright green, in comes the old Hispania grey, which I hate a little less than I used to but I’ve never understood why a team would want their car to blend in with the track.

They’ve gone with matte grey as opposed to gloss which adds some form of interest to the car, and just a wee bit of orange – a missed opportunity to bring a more excitement with a lot of orange. It’s simple, the lines are clean and the logos are well placed, although red on grey isn’t ideal for Isuzu. Just not an attractive main colour which hinders the livey from the get go.

★★

And the award goes to…

Best Looker Award – Mobil 1 Appliances Online Racing

The perfect colour and design choice. Thanks Appliances Online!

Least Attractive Award – Truck Assist Racing

Ever look at a car and think “That would look way better in tarmac grey.”? Me neither.

Most Improved Award – Castrol Racing

In previous years Kelly Racing tried to make a design to suit all cars, which didn’t really suit any of the cars. Fortunately they’ve made a livery specially for Castrol, and it shows.

Press Rewind Award – Matt Stone Racing (Unit)

The all silver car was brilliant last year, shame they moved so far away from it.

Award to Enjoy a Coke With – Team Sydney

Maybe with Courtney and Boost gone, we’ll be able to enjoy two Cokes with Team Sydney!

So, thoughts? What’s your fav? Let me know!

Round-Up – 2019 Supercars Field

Round one is done and dusted, but it’s going to take some time to get used to some of the driver and sponsor changes for 2019. Add in the new Mustang, and it’s a few new things to wrap your head around. Let’s take a look at the best and the worst of this year’s grid.

23Red Racing Milwaukee Racing

After a reasonable first season as a standalone organisation, Milwaukee have moved under the Tickford banner, and seem to have reaped the rewards so far with some solid top ten running for Davison in Adelaide. In terms of livery, the colours haven’t changed, but the overall design is neater.

The edgy angled lines are jarring against the curvy, flowing bodywork of the Mustang, especially over the rear wheel, but isn’t necessarily a bad look. However, the whole livery is just a little underwhelming, and can’t find an aspect about it that I love, not any more so than last year.

★★★

Brad Jones Racing Freightliner Racing

Freightliner Racing have inverted their main colours, with black and yellow just about swapping places for 2019. Annoyingly, in my eyes, they’ve stuck with almost the same design on the side of the car. I don’t want to dwell on this for another year, but I really wish they’d make some lines that fit the Freightliner logo better, and didn’t look like the logo was slapped on after the fact.

That said, black and yellow are foolproof colours, and they still looks nice here. I can’t say the same for the silver, but must be used to tie in the main sponsor. In fact, one of the few teams where silver wheels would have made sense, decided to go with black ones – not that they don’t look great in black. Overall, it’s neither here nor there in terms of improvement, so receives the same rating as last year.

★★☆

Brad Jones Racing National Pharmacies

Nick Percat’s #8 machine appears as though it will have different sponsors race by race again this year, and first cab off the rank is National Pharmacies. These blue and teal colours are some that were pretty unfamiliar to Motorsport, up until Ruoff brought them to Indycar. Mixed with a good chunk of white, they work really well together.

The design is simple, and a racing staple, with the two colours in thick parallel lines running nearly from bumper to bumper. The logo is a perfect size and shape for this design. Some complexity is added at the rear wheel with two white lines added, but feel it may have looked nicer with just the one on the rear door, as it completes the bottom blue section, whilst the other is doesn’t suit so well. Let’s see what’s up next for #8.

★★★☆

Charlie Schwerkolt Racing IRWIN Racing

I’m sad to see the back of what was a superb couple of years this car had in Preston Hire colours, but glad to see that they’ve produced something just as good in 2019. Irwin have joined Frosty at Charlie Schwerkolt Racing, and have put a big fat logo on the side of the car. Along with that comes a really pleasing design and combo of blue and yellow.

The logo and main lines are angled nicely, with the solid yellow sections featuring yellow pinstripes on their borders. These lines are fragmented along the sides, ensuring it isn’t just another plain livery. There are also a couple of white sections – I’m not sure a third colour is necessary in this instance, but they’ve done well to fit in what are likely a sponsor requirement. One irk, however, is the Toyota logo that’s half on the bonnet, half on the grille. I get they’re making the most of the space that’s available, but an OCD I didn’t know I had is definitely flaring up looking at it.

★★★★☆

DJR Team Penske Shell V-Power Racing Team

The Shell V-Power livery is probably the one most affected by the move to the Mustang. They’ve tried to mould the existing livery as best they can into the shape of the new car, which itself has been transformed into a really awkward shape to fit the requirements. What was a gradual slope of the yellow line over the front wheel arch is now a steep drop off, which I’m not a fan of, whether or not its intent is to deceive the viewer of the bonnet’s droop.

Apart from that, there aren’t any significant changes, although the shade of red looks to be deeper, which is a big improvement and just about makes up for the aforementioned alteration. Although it’s still a nice livery overall, I hope for a new livery on these cars next year.

★★★☆

Erebus Motorsport Penrite Racing

Penrite are back for another year, and back in gloss paint! They’ve also gone for some traditional racing stripes, in this instance thick red, with hyper reflective gold pinstripes. They’re simple, but effective, and are also included on either side of the bonnet and roof.

My main issue is with the Penrite logo. The stylised gold looks dated, and would look a lot neater and more modern in a flat gold colour. Further to this, it clashes with the rest of the gold on the car; it may stand out more, but at the expense of non-uniformity. Still a looker and improvement, especially from front on. Super aggressive.

★★★★☆

Garry Rogers Motorsport Boost Mobile Racing

It’s a new look GRM. Out with Tander and Wilson, in with Stanaway and Boost Mobile. It’s a sleek black and orange design, understandably very similar to last year’s WAU livery. There’s a bit more silver to this one which is slightly to it’s detriment, as orange worked well to contrast the black in larger sections last year.

There’s a bit of a Coca Cola vibe at the bottom of the side, and wish the top lines were split as evenly between the two colours as the bottom, but that’s probably just nitpicking. The deeper I look into it the less I like it (look at the chopped off rear wing number…), so I’ll keep it a distance. Looks lovely from there.

★★★★☆

Kelly Racing Castrol Racing

The Kelly Racing liveries seem to have minor changes year on year, but the overall ethos is consistent – sharp, jagged edges with flashes of the third colour. It’s a decent look, but gives the team an identity.

Therefore, there’s not a whole heap to comment on as it’s like they’re putting in values and pressing randomise on a livery generator, apart from the fact that BP Ultimate lime green is hideously jarring against the Castrol green. We’ve seen a similar issue with Castrol in the past, especially on the FPR/Prodrive blue liveries, but here it’s just gross. Derails the livery.

★★

Kelly Racing Plus Fitness Racing

As above, it’s the same design, but without the BP Ultimate problem. I thought it looked better with more blue and more orange last season, and the layout was also stronger in 2018.

I also like the slightly metallic and darker blue used last year. It’s worse in almost every way, but not significantly so, and certainly isn’t ugly, just closer to middle of the road.

★★★

Kelly Racing RABBLE.club Racing

Garry Jacobsen has entered the championship this year, sadly in place of Michael Caruso, who has signed for Tickford for the enduros. Joining Garry on the #3 car is RABBLE.club, which I finally took the time to research. Turns out it’s a ‘digital health & wellness club’, with a fairly shoddy website featuring a poorly designed tiled background, and a promo video of their Falcon livery. All this aside, they’ve made a fairly good effort of painting the Altima.

It looks a lot more like last year’s Nissan design, with the large white portion on the side. The jagged edges look a lot better in thicker sections here compared to the other two liveries above. The reflective blue looks great alongside the white and black, and is overall a far more cohesive livery than the other Altimas.

★★★★

Kelly Racing Team Harvey Norman

Simona looks set for another season of mediocrity (if that) in the Team Harvey Norman entry. It’s an interesting take on the black, white and red livery, which on this occasion has limited any overlapping of the jagged sections. Each section is separated by black which is nice to see, with some lovely detailing included too, such as the silver lines within the main white section.

The Harvey Norman logo also looks much better as black on white. The design overall has made a much better attempt to pay attention to the shape of the car, compared to other version that seems slapped on without much care. One little thing that bothers me is the white section sharply dropping off after the mirror. Mainintaing the same angle toward the front bumper would have had a better effect.

★★★

Matt Stone Racing Unit

Ironically, the new MSR team and livery remind me very much of Team Penske. It’s rare to see, but props to the team for having all sponsors agree to appear in black in order to make an almost perfect two tone livery. It’s super clean and uniform, with the double stripes working brilliantly along the sides, bonnet and roof.

It looks superb from all angles, especially when the sun hits it just right, opening up the silver to a lovely bright shade. There isn’t always a need to complicate things! Unit may only be a one race sponsor, so hopefully this design sticks around, and looks just as good with whoever puts their name on the car next.

★★★★★

Tekno Autosports Truck Assist Tekno Racing

After a short stint with the team last season, Truck Assist are back for a full season with Tekno in 2019. It’s a decent effort, with the orange mainly focused to the front and roof of the car. Not a huge fan of the spiky design on the side, but it looks much better on the bonnet.

It’s a good distribution of orange and black on the car, although I’d have preferred to see more orange toward the rear to make it more even. That said, it’s a lovely shade of orange, and am glad they’ve gone with a good chunk of it so we can tell it apart from the Boost cars despite the similar colour schemes.

★★★★

Tickford Racing Monster Energy Racing

This is essentially the same livery as last year – pure black plus Monster logos. The matte effect works really well on this livery, however, and considering the lack of flashy design elements, it hasn’t tired either. This has also been helped by the transition to the Mustang, which I believe has been pulled off best by this car (probably because it hides all the ugly disproportionate features).

Not a whole lot else to write about. Scandia sticks out as it’s the only prominent sponsor not in white or green, which is great for them. I’m also a fan of the green lights, now that Orrcon has departed. I may have been a little harsh with my previous ratings of this livery, or perhaps my tastes have changed slightly.

★★★★

Tickford Racing Supercheap Auto Racing

I was disappointed to see the large portion yellow had been taken away from the Supercheap livery this season. At first glance, this car almost looks like a patchwork of a number of different sponsors, like we used to see a lot of in the 90s. The main sponsor’s identity has been diluted, purely because others with their own colours, like Century and Castrol, demand more of the focus. It was not so much the case last year. This also has me questioning whether the blue bands below Bendix are part of the larger livery, or for Bendix itself.

The livery in general is weaker in design than 2018, but I’m just annoyed at how inharmoniously everything has been put together. Especially front on. Imagine the million dollar homepage was a livery…

★★

Tickford Racing The Bottle-O Racing Team

Holdsworth has traded places with Frosty for 2019 and has jumped in the Bottle-O car, which is now in it’s tenth season of competition in the iconic green livery. This isn’t the strongest iteration of the design however, but not disappointing like the effort above. The design would have worked just fine without the curved black line behind the front wheel – it’s out of place between the straight green line and gold Southern Comfort line on the bonnet.

The shade of green used is also a less saturated, which is a good thing as a colour like that can become tiresome quickly. It’s a good idea to swap it in every couple of years like they have been doing. Or maybe the photos I’ve found are not as heavily edited as previous years!

★★★

Tim Blanchard Racing Team CoolDrive

I’ve always been a fan of the CoolDrive livery. Tim Blanchard may have retired after a lacklustre career, but the sponsor remains, with Macaulay Jones now piloting his Dad’s #21 car. There are some subtle changes to the design, with the light blue taking up a lot more real estate along the side of the car. White too is more pronounced this season, taking up most of the rear of the car.

The main attraction to this car is the same, lovely metallic blue from last year, and am only disappointed to see less of it on the car in 2019. However, I’m glad the team makes tweaks year on year to keep it interesting. I also like how the design of the livery follows the wavy theme set by the CoolDrive logo. That’s Cool integration. Sorry.

★★★★

Triple Eight Race Engineering Red Bull Holden Racing Team

Red Bull were the first team to show off their cars this season, which was really early in fact, just a week into the new year. What they’ve popped out isn’t bad by any means, but doesn’t hit the same standard as season. There’s a lot of white on this one, and comes off looking a little generic, most likely due to how unique the 2018 livery was (which in hindsight I’d rate higher).

The Red Bull and Holden logos are still awkwardly squabbling for superiority on the sides like a couple of bickering brothers ; two large competing logos in different colours will never completely work on the side of a race car in this fashion. Logos aside, the design sticks mainly to large blue portions on the main panels of the car, with a bit of pin-striping in jagged forms along the edges. It’s an OK livery, but doesn’t get the same originality points as 2018.

★★★

Walkinshaw Andretti United Mobil 1 MEGA Racing

Finally it’s Walkinshaw, who have taken on Mega Fuels as a main sponsor, who have some fairly dodgy photoshops of stock photos on their homepage. This livery, however, is a huge improvement on the sponsors last major design. Here we have a coherent effort, mainly white, taking the odd route of using Mega’s own colours in a less noisy fashion. It’s an inspired choice, as the greater use of purple didn’t work out so well the last time.

That said, the purple, yellow and blue work very well as intricately intertwined ribbons of colour separating the black and white sections of the car. The theme is maintained across the sides, roof and bonnet and keep us interested enough with a splash of colour, as opposed to a mainly purple and yellow livery (which I’d have been intrigued to see). A good effort, and possibly thanks to Mobil, still maintains a strong Walkinshaw identity.

★★★★☆

 

Time for the bonus awards!

Best Look Award – Matt Stone Racing

I didn’t think this would be my pick, but it’s just a clean, satisfying car to look at.

Least Attractive Award – Kelly Racing Castrol Racing

BP Ultimate just kills this one, but isn’t the only fault. The weaker red lines don’t work well against the main green either.

Most Improved Award – Brad Jones Racing & WAU

Brad Jones for the National Pharmacies livery is a little unfair as it’s not a season long livery, so it’s probably more fair to give it to Walkinshaw. Mega have come a long way since Jason Bright’s Falcon in 2017, and is a lot better than Stanaway’s Falcon that they featured on last year too.

Almost There Award – 23 Red Milwaukee Racing

They’ve made changes this year, but still have the same rating. Red, white and black have lots of potential – a couple of inspired tweaks could see them move up the ranks in 2020.

Most Annoying Award – Freightliner Racing

So much potential with those colours, but they insist on having those yellow and silver lines more or less ignore the Freightliner logo. Drives me nuts.

Sponsor That Should Be Angriest Award – Supercheap Auto

I don’t know, maybe they did have a say in the livery design? Regardless, to dictate a livery and be so much less prominent than in previous years…I’d be annoyed if I was on their marketing team. Maybe this is just subjective though?

 

So, let me know your thoughts in the comments below. Do you agree with my opinions, or am I totally wrong on any of these?

LIVERY UPDATES – SANDOWN RETRO ROUND 2018

As usual, my review is well after the event; one reason is time of course, but the other is that I always prefer to use on track shots, rather than promo photos, with decent quality shots often taking some time to find. Regardless, here are the retro round updates we saw at Sandown last week.

#2 Pye/Luff & #25 Courtney/Perkins

First cab off the rank is Mobil 1 Boost Racing, who paid homage to the 2008 Toll HRT, the last Commodore to be driven full time by Mark Skaife. The first thing I wonder in situations like this is, how should a company feel when they are, in essence, promoting another?

Marketing aside, it’s refreshing but also makes me feel old when we are looking at a 2008 livery as retro. It isn’t completely identical, and can’t be given they are not longer Holden backed, but could have used a little more silver to more strongly replicate the old design. Neat to see, but wouldn’t have it over their usual livery.

#9 Reynolds/Youlden

Retro done right! Erebus have done a great job emulating the 1986 Bathurst winner, replicating it almost line for line, including a very nice stylised Penrite logo to match the now defunct Chickadee. This is a style of livery design that has been out of favour for a number of years, but I hope it makes a comeback of sorts.

I personally love flowing liveries, but straight lines with harsh angles have their own odd charm, which is clearly visible on a few of this year’s retro efforts. Probably mine and many others’ pick of the bunch.

#12 Coulthard/D’Alberto & #17 McLaughlin/Prémat

Simple, however, also has its place in retro round. No fuss was also a popular theme back in the day, and the Sierras driven by Dick Jojnson and John Bowe were a leading example.

The key to a simple livery is the right colour, and DJR Team Penske have done well in bringing back this shade of red, which is just different enough to their usual red to be noticeable and eye catching. The clean look is pulled off well, capped off with the warm fuzzy feeling of classic number plates on the doors.

#14 Slade/Walsh

Brad Jones Racing have tipped their hat to Bob Jane and his 1972 Monaro with this orangy-red effort. It’s a quite similar replica to DJR Team Penske, but this one falls apart slightly in that the logo placement just doesn’t quite match the original. The blocky white Alliance logo, despite attempting to match the theme, is the main culrpit, adding a lot of white where it should appear plain red, not to mention the number font. The thought was there, but the execution slightly lacking for the #14.

#15 Kelly/Jacobson

Castrol have decided to throw back to 2002, oddly enough replicating the Larry Perkins Commodore on the#15 Nissan. As strange as that seems to me, the design is near identical which is super pleasing to see. All that’s missing are the thick five spoke wheels in white!

While this was not my favourite Castrol livery of all time (that would probably go to the 1997 Castrol Commodore or the 1993 Castrol Celica), it’s a great nod to the recent motoring past.

#18 Holdsworth/Bright

This retro livery isn’t too dissimilar to the Freightliner entry last season, but so was the basic design thinking in the 60s and 70s.

The #18 this year closely resembles the 1968 McPhee Monaro it pays homage to. It’s a completely authentic looking design, with perfectly matching lines, numbers, and even the old ‘Class D’ lettering (on the side at least). The ‘Warwick Yellow’ looks great and is a nice break for the usual, equally nice Preston Hire yellow.

#21 Blanchard/Wood

Tim Blanchard kept it classy this year, giving a nod to the BMW his father had once raced. I remember Lotus getting some heat for using the old JPS liveries as inspiration in Formula 1 one year, but you can’t get much closer to a cigarette livery than this Benson & Hedges replica.

Any livery fanatic will tell you that cigarette brands had some of the best and most memorable liveries of all time, and this here is no exception. It’s translates incredibly well to a modern racer, and despite a departure from the usual blue, CoolDrive looks fantastic and in no way out of place on the design. While cigarettes are terrible things, I’m glad in a way that they left an imprint on the Motorsport world.

#33 Tander/Pither

Another set of direct replicas, and don’t these look amazing. Both are depicting cars Garry Rogers himself had driven, this one a 1978 Torana. As I mentioned with the Chickadee Penrite machine, it’s great to see some truly retro shapes and colours going on this year, this one being a true period piece of the 1970s. This too translates well to a modern Supercar, and just looks nice!

Would love to see this used for the rest of the Enduros – fingers crossed.

#34 Golding/Muscat

The #34 is an homage to Garry’s 1983 Commodore. The sleek black and simple white line and chevron look great on the 2018 car. It’s nice to see that simple designs can work just as well as the odd and complex ones.

#55 Mostert/Moffat

Antother design from the not too distant past, with Tickford choosing to paint the #55 in Steven Ellery’s Supercheap Auto colours from 2004. They’ve steered clear of purple this year, instead going with the blac, red and silver design. They’ve taken some liberties and simplified the livery slightly, removing some of the extra yellow lines, which does modernise the design. It’s great to see not only replicas, but successful modernisation of classic liveries this year.

#78 De Silvestro/Rullo

For De Silvestro and Rullo, Nissan have gone with a retro themed design as opposed to immitating an actual past livery. I’m not sure how rich Harvey Norman’s racing history is, but I’m sure there would have been some lovely looking Nissans to choose from, rather than this very basic effort. Whilst it’s very similar in design to others we’ve seen this year and last, red and white doesn’t really excite!

#99 De Pasquale/Brown

I went the whole of last weekend, somehow, thinking both the Erebus cars had the same livery. My usually attentive eye stupidly saw the retro Chickadee font and didn’t ask any further questions. Luckily in writing this post I picked up on my error, and found that the #99 is based on the 1982 Toyota Celica.

In actual fact, the two liveries are completely different, this one focusing simply on a thick red stripe across the bonnet and front quarter panels. It’s a great job again of font replication and logo placement, although the one thing I’d have loved to see on both cars was the Penrite/Erebus logos on the side sprawling all the way above the rear wheel to the rear bumper.

 

It’s great fun to see retro round increasing in stature year after year, and more teams and fans embracing it with the awesome inspired and replica liveries. Can’t wait for next year.

 

 

Round-Up – Supercars 2018 Field

Had the pleasure of seeing the Adelaide 500 in person this year, which is also why I’m so late in posting this. No doubt there will be a myriad of livery changes throughout but season, but let’s take a look at how they started the season.

23Red Racing Milwaukee Racing

#230 Will Davison

First cab off the rank is the new 23Red Racing team, co-owned by Phil Munday and Lucas Dumbrell. The livery sensibly makes use of the Milwaukee logo thunderbolt as a theme for the car, but doesn’t take it to the next step of creativity. What we’re left with a pretty standard red and white livery, split by a black thunderbolt on the front quarter panel.

However, this doesn’t make it bad by any means. The red flashes on the splitter and bonnet with black piping are great and make me wish that perhaps there was less of the main red in favour of these smaller details on white. Add what looks like a hastily removed logo on the rear quarter panel (nitpicking, I know) and you’ve got a pretty run of the mill, but attractive enough design. A good benchmark for the rest of the field!

★★★

Brad Jones Racing Blackwoods Racing

#8 Nick Percat

Two colours that can work really well, but in this application are lacking. It’s a very simple design and where straight lines can be appealing, in this case fail to provide any excitement. I think I’d have preferred a simple complete parallel shape as opposed to the odd, single pointed shape that has instead been used for this livery. What also hurts this design is the very dull Blackwoods logo, but that can’t really be helped from the team’s side.

The finishing touch is provided by this ugly bonnet. ‘Rock Your Weld’, the motto of the main sponsor, is hideously jarring to the rest of the livery and makes an average livery quite poor. At least it looks like Percat will have one sponsor for the whole season this year, although maybe it was better he didn’t in this case.

★

Brad Jones Racing Freightliner Racing

#14 Tim Slade

As Preston Hire Racing have proved for the last couple of seasons, black and yellow are terrific colours to work with, and Freightliner Racing have joined the party. Gone is the red and white, and in comes the vibrant yellow, paired with black as well as some small slithers of silver. Front on, the livery is great, with simple black and silver sections bordering the bonnet and all the sponsors working together coherently.

Side profile however, things become a little less seamless. Unfortunately the Freightliner logo looks as though it is very difficult to work with, and this leads to a livery where the main sponsor logo isn’t worked very well into the design, looking almost slapped on at the end. It’s a little bit of damned if you do, damned if you don’t, but some small details such as the logo not overlapping with the yellow section on behind the front wheel would have made a big difference in this regard.

★★☆

Charlie Schwerkolt Racing Preston Hire Racing

#18 Lee Holdsworth

Speak of the devil, Preston Hire Racing have followed up last year’s stunner with another. A couple of subtle changes in that there’s a bit more black than last year, paint is gloss rather than matte and the lines are overall a little more swoopy than last year’s edgy design, but the overall theme has just remained the same.

There are also a few silver sections this year which reflect nicely in the sunlight, but even with the white Toyota Forklifts section on the boot, is still a fantastically uniform livery. The amount of red has also reduced which is great for uniformity. Can’t say I love it as much as 2017 and I’m not exactly sure why – perhaps the shade of yellow, but it’s still absolutely lovely.

★★★★☆

DJR Team Penske Shell V-Power Racing Team

#12 Fabian Coulthard & #17 Scott McGlaughlin

DJR Team Penske have an unchanged livery for 2018. I’m slightly disappointed given it wasn’t even my favourite of the their possible 2017 choices, but it’s a good combination of colours and design.

Still a solid livery, although it’s simplicity means it has dated every so slightly, especially with the thinning yellow lines bordering the white.

★★★☆

Erebus Motorsport

#9 David Reynolds

Erebus have gone for something a little more complicated with the Penrite car this year. It’s better and worse in different areas. Whilst I loved the piping on the front and rear of the 2017 car, the thin lightning bolts also work very well on the front in 2018. However, the thicker gold section on the side isn’t quite as effective – not quite the colour/shade you want in large quantities. Not only that, it clashes with the gold in Penrite logo, which it sits directly next to. Triggers my OCD.

The other thing of note is the grille, which on this car is obnoxiously coloured red. Not a fan of such a brightly coloured grille which I don’t think it works well at all. Overall, it may sound like there are more negatives than positives, but it also improves in other areas such as the removal of the odd shaped gold areas on the splitter of last year’s livery. More or less even.

★★★★

#99 Anton de Pasquale

Anton de Pasquale is the first rookie on the list, but the design on the #99 is the same as the #9. The colours are slightly more suited to the sponsor, with silver instead of gold. This helps in making the livery seamless, but takes away a bit of bite for the same reason.

Unfortunately the red grille also remains, but a good livery nonetheless.

★★★★

Garry Rogers Motorsport Wilson Security Racing GRM

#33 Garth Tander & #34 James Golding

With Moffat given the boot, another rookie in James Golding joins Tander at GRM this year, the cars appropriately adorning a similar livery to the Tander/Golding enduro design. The basic shape is the same, but the main separating line on this occasion is a chrome silver. Bordering the silver is red, which then uses a slow and intermittent gradient to turn to blue. This whole section looks terrific.

The front is great too, with even sections of red and black swooping across the bonnet and importantly, around and not in the grille. Everything on the livery works really well together – every colour is complimentary, every logo fits and nothing looks out of place. About as close to perfect as you’ll get.

★★★★★

Matt Stone Racing Bigmate Racing

#35 Todd Hazelwood

It may be a surprise that there are three blue and orange liveries in the field, and the middle one belongs to another rookie, Todd Hazelwood. The design here is pretty safe, mainly following the key panels of the car and not venturing much further. The orange sections break up the blue well, but could even have been used more sparsely to good effect.

A slight issue I have with this car is the shade of blue and orange used. The blue is quite strong/saturated which can be OK, but used alongside a fluro, the clash is quite harsh rather than complimentary. A slightly darker or less saturated blue may have been a better option here. Either way, there’s plenty of white to break the strong colours up, which salvages some good looks for the livery overall, keeping it just about above average.

★★★

Nissan Motorsport

#7 Andre Heimgartner

Speaking of orange and blue, this is definitely the pick of the bunch. As mentioned before, the colours aren’t as strong on this livery, with the paler orange and lighter, metallic blue working very well together. The large blue section is complimented by orange around the windows and along the bottom, which then abruptly, but very nicely switches to white, which takes over the front of the car.

There are also small sections of silver, which don’t really add anything, and have been better in white or just left in orange. It’s a classic complex Nissan design, but works well with the colours. The Plus Fitness logo also works a lot better in this format than it has on previous efforts.

★★★★☆

#15 Rick Kelly

This one certainly suprised me – classic Motorsport sponsor Castrol was back in a big way, dictating the livery of Rick Kelly’s Nissan in 2018. Thankfully we see the back of the Castrol bonnet logos on other cars with no regard to their aesthetics or colour schemes, and instead are replaced with the unmistakable and very attractive green,  red and white in a big way.

Again, a typically complex Nissan livery, but with green the main colour instead of white as is usually the case for Castrol designs. Some parts are more or less shared with the above Plus Fitness livery, such as the window area and the white sections on the boot, but overall, also looks very nice in this form.

★★★★☆

#23 Michael Caruso

The more you look at the Nissans, the more characteristics they share. #23 is sponsored by Drive.com.au this year and therefore, takes on the bright teal to go with the usual black, white and silver.

Some red also remains, mainly for the Autoglym logo on the front. I should like this livery a lot less for that reason, but the red does help to break up all the black and blue. One thing I do find slightly annoying is the odd blue on the rear quarter panel, which just doesn’t belong.

★★★★

Nissan Motorsport Team Harvey Norman

#78 Simona de Silvestro

Just about the same design again here as you’d expect, but a pretty big change in colour scheme, with black now the main colour in place of red for the Harvey Norman Altima. Definitely stands out the least due to the duller colour palette, but having one fewer colour works in its favour.

For example, the red on white of the stripe along the side of the car works far better here than the silver does on either the #7 or #23, and does just about enough to outweigh the standard colours.

★★★★

Tekno Autosports

#19 Jack Le Brocq

Le Brocq is the next newbie on the list and Tekno haven’t deviated too far from the all black car they launched with. The SS Signs logo is in your face and the accompanying design matches it well.

The blue and yellow shards are reasonably well spaced and look good on the front, but I’m slightly indifferent to the ones on the side that are perhaps a little bit messy. I’d look to declutter the side by removing a couple of the blue sections on the side and let the jet black shine.

★★★

Tickford Racing The Bottle-O Racing Team

#5 Mark Winterbottom

Another year in the Bottle-O Falcon for Frosty and it’s another evolution of the green livery in 2018. This sees a lot more white toward the front of the car than last year, taking over the roof and the front b-pillar. There’s also some more black on the rear, meaning there’s less green on the car overall this year.

The design itself is edgier, but better coordinated overall, with most of the lines more or less moving in the same direction, where last year’s design had different shapes all over the place. The black is also glossy rather than matte this year which is welcome. A decent improvement.

★★★★

Tickford Racing Monster Energy Racing

#6 Cameron Waters

No changes of note to call out on the Monster Energy Falcon. Still matte, which works well in this instance with the all black design.

Again, not a lot to say. Hasn’t dated significantly either, which is a bug plus.

★★★

Tickford Racing Supercheap Auto Racing

#55 Chaz Mostert

You wouldn’t think of it at first glance, but this is exactly the same design as the Bottle-O Falcon. The completely different colour scheme disguises that very well.

Not a heap more to add considering, but these colours work very well together as has been showcased for the last couple of seasons. Can’t say I prefer one over the other! Shame we didn’t get any sneaky purple, but perhaps we will come the enduros.

★★★★

Tickford Racing

#56 Richie Stanaway

As above, this is the same design. However, in this instance it’s incredibly boring. Tickford’s corporate colours don’t produce any excitement in this layout. There’s just too much empty white, and the red and black aren’t enough to significantly improve it.

It suffers from the same issue as Bright’s Falcon last year where there’s a little too much empty space, but at least the colours work a little better on this occasion. I imagine swapping the black and white sections would vastly improve the livery.

★★

Tim Blanchard Racing Team CoolDrive

#21 Tim Blanchard

Somehow Blanchard is still in the sport, despite only achieving 4 top ten finishes in as many full seasons in the sport (plus three others outside this). At least he drives a car with an attractive livery. The design is almost identical to 2017, apart from the flashes on the front being removed, and an alternate CoolDrive logo being used.

The other and key change for 2018 is the colour. They’ve gone with a metallic and less saturated shade of blue, which works so much better on a racing livery. It changes the whole aesthetic of the car and makes the #21 machine a joy to look at this year.

★★★★

Triple Eight Race Engineering Red Bull Holden Racing Team

#1 Jamie Whincup & #97 Shane van Gisbergen

A significant change this year for Red Bull Holden, moving away from the Formula 1 imitation to something quite original! The navy blue remains but the livery is now more or less half white too, split down the side in a jagged and faded design which is complex without being obnoxious.

Quite difficult to explain this one, and it works well to an extent, but it still feels like there’s a fight between the Holden and Red Bull logos which takes up half of the car and detracts from the livery. You’d think Red Bull could stick with the Bull only and remove the text logo to clean up the livery slightly.

★★★☆

Triple Eight Race Engineering Autobarn Lowndes Racing

#888 Craig Lowndes

It’s been a while since we saw Autobarn as a main sponsor of a Supercars machine, but that’s the case for Triple 8 this year. It’s a shame we only had the Vortex livery for one season, but it’s replacement is great and almost provides a sense of nostalgia, dipping somewhere between the above Autobarn of the 2000s and the Green Eyed Monster in my opinion, thanks largely to the silver present (perhaps the Lowndes connection helps too).

The design itself utilises evergreen parallel stripes along the bottom of the side, along with copious amounts of silver to compliment the black on the rest of the car. There are other flashes of yellow around the car too which help add further colour to what could otherwise be slightly dull. Yellow mirrors and intake are a nice touch.

★★★★

Walkinshaw Andretti United Mobil 1 Boost Mobile Racing

#2 Scott Pye & #25 James Courtney

Michael Andretti has branched out and joined fellow American Roger Penske in Supercars, teaming up with Walkinshaw to create Walkinshaw Andretti United and Mobil 1 Boost Mobile Racing. Mobil 1 Boost Mobile Racing. Say that 5 times quickly. Tongue twister aside, some further confusion has also been cleared with Boost now sponsorship just the one team, after sponsoring Courtney and Percat part way through last year. They’ve also settled for glossy black (truly a mass matte exodus this season) which matches really well with the orange.

The Boost logo is huge on the side, but actually works as a design element, blending in very well and adding a nice chunk of orange to the side of the car. Other orange elements are on the roof, wing and splitter, as well as some other orange and white flashes elsewhere on the car. A great colour combo and look overall.

★★★★☆

 

So, bonus awards!

Best Looker Award – Wilson Security Racing GRM

Just about perfect. Nothing to complain about. A stunner!

Least Attractive Award – Blackwoods Racing

No real redeeming features on this car. The design is boring and the bonnet is butt ugly. A shame, as the colour combo can be very effective.

Best Orange and Blue Livery – Nissan Motorsport #7

There are a few orange and blue liveries this season, but one is a standout. The Plus Fitness car is not only the best of the colour combination, but also the best of the Nissan livery template.

Livery Updates – Supercars Bathurst and Gold Coast

Let’s take a look at some recent updates for the Supercars, starting with a true nagger. Nick Percat got another major round sponsor on board, this time in the shape of Boost. The only weird thing is, Boost already sponsors James Courtney’s car. What this has resulted in, is a weird situation where a car from Walkinshaw Racing and a car from Brad Jones Racing, are running almost identical liveries, despite being different teams.

It totally weird me out, and as you can see above, apart from a couple of sponsor logos, the designs are identical! Perhaps this is simply opportunistic, with both teams’ other cars sponsorships locked in, but doesn’t make it any less odd. Perhaps next year we’ll a single team with the Boost livery, although their logo is littered up and down the grid.

The design has changed slightly since it was introduced to the #22, with the main colour now a metallic charcoal, supported by a reflective ‘chrome’ orange on the roof. It’s a really nice retro looking design in its simplicity and layout, although is modernised with some spiked edges along the side and piping on the front and rear bumpers.

Mark Winterbottom of Prodrive Racing Australia during the Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000, at the Mount Panorama Circuit, Bathurst, New South Wales, October 05, 2017.

Prodrive missed the boat for Sandown retro round, and came to Bathurst with an old school livery instead. This was an ode to Alan Moffat’s Ford of the late 70s, and they’ve done a good job in translating the simple livery onto the 2017 Falcon. It’s not a direct copy and has had some slight changes, for example the gap between the red and blue lines is wider and the black outline thinner, which actually makes quite a big difference to the overall look.

Elsewhere, Michael Caruso’s Nissan sported a different blue design, this time sponsored by BIG4 Holiday Parks. The blue had a slight gradient, giving it the feel of a blue summer’s sky, a clever way of getting people to think about their upcoming holidays! This was accompanied by a solid green line along the bottom of the side, outlined with white.

Caruso had yet another livery in the Gold Coast, a very Nissan livery, with the tagline ‘Beware of Strangers’ warning owners of  not taking their cars to cars to official Nissan service centers.

Livery Updates – Sandown Retro Round

Retro round is back for another year, and this time, the majority of the field has joined the party! I’m torn, because there’s nothing better than some living nostalgia, but at the same time it takes some of the fun away when everybody does it. It also means I have to write and research for that much longer…anywho, here’s what I thought of the liveries!

#2 Pye/Luff

Emulating Peter Brock’s 1994 HRT car, this design takes the overall theme of the old and truly brings it into the new. The half white half navy element has been nailed here and splitting this cleanly rather than with the lion makes a huge difference in not simply copying the original, and making it very attractive. Super clean and makes what is a mostly white livery lively.

#3 Russell/Douglas

The #3 Lucas Dumbrell machine takes us back to 1996, displaying the original logo of plus fitness, and a livery design to match. The logo is as basic as you’d expect a brand new business logo to be, with the design appropriately simple. With simple block sections bordered by plain straight lines, there’s not a lot to love, but not much to hate about this livery.

#4 Blanchard/Hazelwood

Brad Jones Racing paid homage to Norm Beehcey, Australia Touring Car champion of the 60s and 70s. The first of these was the Cooldrive machine, replicating ironically perhaps, the 1965 Mustang that Beechey drove to his first championship. Sporting some very Ford blue with white racing stripes, there’s not much to it! However, you can see where a lovely colour can make a livery work. Whilst this looks a little boring, the Calsonic Altima is quite pretty in comparison, despite even less design elements.

Also, how about that crash for Hazelwood. Shame it ended their weekend, but absolutely spectacular.

#7 T. Kelly/Le Brocq & #15 R. Kelly/Wall

Really clever these two liveries from Nissan. The respective colours the Sengled and Carsales sponsorships have presented a great opportunity to replicate a pair of liveries from the 60s. Don’t know a lot about these BRE Datsuns, but they were beautifully simple liveries, which have been transferred very well to a modern day racing chasis. It’s a simple design, with white the main colour and red/blue covering the top section of the car, and two parallel diagonal stripes on the front quarter panel, changing colours at the Nissan logo. One of the better alternating team colour livery combos, with both quickly and easily differentiated.

#8 Percat/Jones

The #8 paid tribute to Beechey’s 1967 Chevy. Another simple racing stripe livery, this time mostly black, with one simple red lines down the middle of top, bordered with yellow. Works quite well on a modern car!

#9 Reynolds/Youlden

Erebus were another team to celebrate Brock, with the #9 sporting the livery that Peter and Phil Brock raced to victory at Sandown 41 years ago. The design is as identical as could be on a modern car, and looks good in doing so. As so many were back in the day, it’s delightfully simple, with a thick straight line each of red and blue along the side of the car, with a slight upturn toward the rear. The blue hood looks good too, whilst the retro Penrite logo finishes the job.

 

#18 Holdsworth/Reindler

Preston Hire Racing went for a cheeky retro round design, making many of us giggle like they were back in high school due to ‘Preston Erection’ adorning half of the car this week. This is the name Preston Hire had begun its life with, so aside from the inuendo, it has a purpose! The design is literally split between the retro and the modern on either side of the #18 machine, in a style that will take most back to the 1999 BAR F1 zipper livery. Preston Hire Racing split the design via a jagged line from front to back, which is great for a one off; very interesting indeed. Great to see as many logos as possible in their retro stylings on the Preston Erection side.

#22 Courtney/Perkins

Don’t have to go too far back for this, just 2007! This livery will bring back some unpleasant memories for Ford fans, with the events that were triggered by a nearly identical car at Phillip Island the year before. That said, this was perhaps brought about by fortunately similar sponsor colours with Boost. The general design is more or less the same, minus the lion that adorned the HSV Dealer Team cars. However, this attempt does remind me of an unlicensed video game, where the design has to be similar, but not so similar that it trigger the involvement of lawyers.

#23 Caruso/Fiore

You know, if anyone dared to make such a plain ‘original’ livery nowadays, it would likely be trashed by design pundits, but putting on the nostalgia goggles really does wonders for this retro livery. The Caruso/Fiore Altima goes back to the early 90s with this Calsonic R32 Skyline re-creation, and this takes me back to my Gran Turismo days on Playstation. Amazing how such a basic livery can be so memorable, and good looking with the shade of blue they’ve chosen here!

And for those who were GT fans like me, how good is this little video Nissan Motorsport put up on Facebook!

#33 Tander/Golding

A pretty unique opportunity for GRM here, recreating the first livery that Garth Tander had raced in in V8 Supercars (then ATCC) back in 1998, which was also for GRM. Mainly white , with the navy rear split with a curved red line, accompanied by a thin light blue line in a colour scheme that is entirely uniform. It works very well on the 2017 car and it’s fantastic to see that GRM’s Valvoline partnership is still going 19 years on!

#34 Moffat/Muscat

James Moffat’s goes back in time to his fathers time of racing, replicating the Rothmans sponsored Commodore that was raced in Europe. Is one of the more basic Rothmans liveries that existed, but clean and simple is all that is required on many occasions. It’s a perfectly appealing livery and makes me wonder why so many modern liveries feel the need to be so complicated.

#55 Mostert/Owen

Prodrive and Supercheap Auto Racing have gone with another blast from the past this year, selecting another classic purple livery, but this time from 1999. It’s fair to say this was never a very attractive design, with the odd, almost netting design along the side, but the colour choice is so bold and unique, it’s almost admirable. Fun to see on a modern car, but really lacking some finesse, such as a retro Supercheap logo and white rims!

#62 Rullo/Davison

As with the #3, the #62 LDM goes back in time, to the first logo used by Phil Mundays, when it was a panel beaters in Bayswater, Victoria. It’s actually a very nice logo, and is matched well with a big retro looking number on the side. The design is also simple and definitely has a 70s feel to it. Wouldn’t be unhappy to see this used again.

#75 Slade/Walsh

Completing the trio is yellow livery, referencing Beechey’s final championship winning Monaro in 1970. Here we see bright yellow, with uneven parallel red stripes along the top of the car. Again, very simple, but true to the original. It looks nice on the the modern Commodore, but perhaps a few too many logos on the BJR cars, ending in a cluttered look.

#78 De Silvestro/Russell

This was an interesting choice, perhaps due to the colour scheme of the Harvey Norman machine, but they’ve gone with recreating the Nissan R380 livery. It’s actually a clever design, emulating the very curvy body of the original car simply through the design, which curves above the wheel arches where the R380 does. It looks nice and does it’s best to not entirely disregard the natural flow of the Altima.

#88 Whincup/Dumbrell & #97 van Gisbergen/Campbell

Red Bull HRT have gone for the ‘feel’ of the 1970s Toranas, and while it’s kind of there with the main white, blue hood and red trimmings, it’s majorly disrupted by Red Bull taking up most of the side and adding perhaps a tad too much blue to the design. It’s an attractive design overall and makes use of a retro Holden logo, but I’d be keen to see Red Bull use some of their own history in the future, such as the 1995 Sauber, or even the 2004 test livery. The logo doesn’t seem to have changed much at least!

#99 Wood/Pither

Similar to Nissan’s approach last year, Erebus have gone with a NASCAR/AUSCAR look for their second car. This livery gives me retro vibes probably more than any other, with the colour palette on show looking oh so 90s. The big number gives off the NASCAR vibes, but you just can’t get over the white/blue/yellow/silver combo. It’s hideously charming. Really fun to see GB Galvanizing on exactly the same part of the car all these years later.

#888 Lowndes/Richards

It’s a retro look, but a unique design for TeamVortex. They’ve taken the old Caltex logo and come up with a livery that oozes 80s, without actually copying a past livery. Props for the originality. The design uses simple straight lines, along with interesting use of lined gradients to accentuate the theme, whilst the star number plate is totally ridiculous but also fits the bill.

Livery Updates – July Catch Up

Looks like we’re at the end of the month already! Let’s take a look at what we’ve missed throughout July, starting with the good old Supercars.

Another week another sponsor for Percat, who has Dunlop Super Dealer backing this weekend in Ipswich. The iconic lettering never looks out of place on a racing car and the black on yellow background looks as good as ever. Keeping it simple here with two parallel stripes in red and black along the bottom of the car and giant Dunlop logo on the front door, which I associate more with shoes than cars these days.

The last of the wildcards has joined the grid in Ipswich, in the shape of the #35 Commodore, driven by Todd Hazelwood. Big Mate are the main sponsor of the car, who appear to be involved in GPS monitoring solutions, and have brought with them some pretty standard colours in red, white and blue. There’s a main diagonal blue section across the side, bordered by white and red, with white the main colour over the rest of the car. Very logo heavy this one, bringing a cluttered look to the livery.

Just quickly, it appears as though Castrol have reduced their backing on Mostert’s Super Cheap Auto car, which is great news, as Bosch now takes up the bonnet space with a black background. This allows the livery to look uniform and complete once again!

Skipping across to the States, we saw Rahal in an uncustomary yellow livery for Iowa. The Gehl sponsored machine was a beautiful shade of yellow, looking super simple and clean with just the single black line from nose to tail. The majority black wings help contrast the yellow making for a very nice livery overall.

One week later, however, Graham was back in red, but again, not his usual Steak ‘n Shake livery. This Rousseau backed livery was mainly red, with white over the top of the nose, cockpit and engine cover. As far as basic designs go, this is probably my favourite style, having the lighter shade of the ‘top’ surfaces of the car. Black wings bring a welcome third colour to the design.

We’ve also seen Rossi change colours since the start of the season. The blue is the same, but now features red where the yellow of Napa used to be. In this case, the entire sidepod is red rather than just what the Napa logo covered previously, on the usual Andretti design.

Penske had a couple of livery changes in Toronto, with Pagenaud switching to a car seemingly in greyscale. While I’m not usually a big fan of liveries without colour *cough* Haas *cough*, this is a decent looking novelty that should only last a race or two. Also important to note that silver, not grey, is used, and as the third colour, not the primary.

A simple change for Newgarden too, with DeVilbiss bringing a bright orange in place of the Verizon silver. I love organge as a colour, but this is certainly a downgrade.

Most recently, Chip Ginassi have joined in on the Indycar chrome livery fad, spicing up the usual NTT Data livery. It’s a nice super reflective blue along the engine cover, nose and wings, complementing the plain white well. There are also a neat detail in what resembles a big brush stroke, in different colours of blue, filling up some of the white space. A nice livery but we’ll see if it’s only a one off.

Finally, switching over to Formula e and MS Amlin Andretti have made significant changes to their livery, adding some big chunks of teal, literally on top of the existing livery. They’ve gone about it with a torn paper effect, which actually looks quite nice and hides to lazy thought behind the idea.

Finally, this update isn’t new but one I guess I should cover. Haas went and made their livery EVEN MORE BORING since the disappointment they revealed at the beginning of the season. In a corporate move Ron Dennis would have applauded, they’ve made the red sections white, so they could stand out more. Technically this may be the case in terms of copywriting, but I can’t imagine a time that white would be more eye-catching than red? Either way, boo to you, Haas, the biggest livery let down on the grid.

Livery Updates – Supercars Townsville

We saw a few welcome changes for Townsville this past weekend, with some alterations made to a couple of the weakest liveries on the grid!

The Tekno Autosports car suffered from an incredibly generic design to start off the year and have thankfully moved to something with a little more flavour and personality from Townsville onwards. Woodstock’s rebranding brings a fresh and attractive new logo to the car, along with a lovely champagne gold colour, reminiscent of the Warsteiner Arrows of the late 70s, and more recently the 1996 B + H Jordan.

While I’d have liked to see this colour extend rearward, the majority of the rest of the car is black, with neat strips of red and gold along the side. The rear features a little more red than black giving an asymmetric feel to car, which is borderline nagger status for me. A huge improvement nonetheless!

The other major change was Jason Bright’s Falcon, and as above, quite an improvement! Both of my major gripes are gone; no more blue on the car means there can’t be a clash with the lovely purple, and the design no longer looks like it belongs in Super2. A simple yet attractive use of the logo and straight parallel lines makes for two thumbs up from me. Perhaps a little black heavy given the cool purple available for use.

Percat had local sponsor McHitch on board this weekend, in what understandably comes off a little amateurish. The yellow fading to white is OK but slightly too simple, and paired with the bright purple, albeit sponsor colours, doesn’t work so well.

This car is also getting a little crowded, with a number of logos competing for space and clashing too heavily in terms of colour.

Todd Kelly was also back in a Boatsales livery, albeit slightly different to last time.