Williams have unveiled four potential Gulf liveries and invited fans to vote for which of them they will run at this year’s Singapore, Japanese and Qatar grands prix.
After Gulf joined Williams as a major sponsor at the start of the 2023 season, the team hinted at the possibility of running the oil company’s famous sky blue and orange colour scheme as their main livery colours. Gulf previously did the same at the 2021 Monaco Grand Prix when they were a sponsor of McLaren.Williams have confirmed they will run Gulf’s colours on their livery later this season at the Singapore, Japan and Qatar rounds towards the end of the season. The team have revealed four potential designs that fans will be allowed to vote on, with the most popular design being what the team will race with in all three rounds.
Three rounds of voting will begin later today on the Williams team website with the final winning design announced in July.
Team principal James Vowles said the livery vote was a celebration of “two iconic motorsport brands coming together.”
“Our fans have the opportunity to create motorsport history with their livery decision, bringing this partnership to life,” Vowles said. “I can’t wait to see the winning design and watch the Williams Racing fans cheering the team on.”
Several other teams have modified their liveries for special races this year. Alpine began the 2023 season running in an all-pink design in honour of title sponsors BWT during the opening three races of the season in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Australia.
In Miami Red Bull ran its first of three slightly modified liveries designed by fans which it will use at the American rounds. McLaren has a special livery again for this weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix, commemorating its wins in the three ‘triple crown’ races.
Williams Gulf livery designs
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Ioannis Binas
26th May 2023, 12:25
Having such colors at their disposal, it must have required a colossal superhuman effort to make all four of them boring and uninspiring…
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
26th May 2023, 13:42
I like the heritage one, but yeah… they aren’t that bold for a special livery.
SB12 (@sb12)
26th May 2023, 12:28
So sorry for Williams team, all those liveries only reminding me the McLaren Monaco special before.
A failed PR exercise to me.
Sonny Crockett (@sonnycrockett)
26th May 2023, 12:32
Yeah, that’s a big problem.
Pedro Andrade
26th May 2023, 14:09
Thought the same as well. Copying something with such little time in between does not work very well.
Olivier
26th May 2023, 14:52
Williams did a better job in my opinion: They did put in the effort to reimagine a classic livery. McLaren’s Gulf livery was too much of a copy paste from the past, which I do find dull and uninspiring.
Kudos to the Williams graphics department for coming up with not one, but four tasteful interpretations of a classic. Their contemporary livery option is my favourite as it exults speed while paying tribute to a glorious past.
Williams 2023 Gulf livery : 7/10
McLaren’s 2022 Gulf livery: 3/10
Adam (@rocketpanda)
26th May 2023, 12:37
I think the “visionary” one is the obvious winner for the elements of Williams blue in with the Gulf colours. The other three just look like remixed versions of the McLaren, so… Visionary or bust, tbh.
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
26th May 2023, 12:44
I’d like the last one with a little more orange in it. The bunnies at Duracell will love them all – the colours make their black and gold roll hoop really stand out.
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
26th May 2023, 12:46
That’s “Heritage.”
Biskit Boy (@sean-p-newmanlive-co-uk)
26th May 2023, 14:58
I think the one with the most orange is “Visionary” . The two sets of images are in a different order.
My favourite is “Heritage” because of the wheel colours.
I’m fed up that almost all the teams have black wheels at the moment… boring and colours would help ID the cars.
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
26th May 2023, 19:35
Ferrari should be encouraged to have gold spoked wheels (or covers with pictures of them) like the 412T2. Extra wind-tunnel time, access to Adrian Newey, whatever it takes.
Neil (@neilosjames)
26th May 2023, 13:19
I normally prefer simple liveries, so Heritage would be my choice.
Jere (@jerejj)
26th May 2023, 13:38
Visionary is my outright favorite.
RandomMallard
26th May 2023, 15:10
I think “Heritage” is the best of them here. In my opinion, if you’re going to pay tribute to a classic livery, you should go all-or-nothing and try and keep it as true to the original as possible, so I’m not a huge fan of updating them too much. I know McLaren never ran a Gulf livery before 2021, but it was very similar to the old Gulf Racing sportscar liveries so I was alright with it. It’s the same reason I don’t particularly like the Peugeot Le Mans livery and McLaren’s livery this weekend; I’d much rather see 1 whole classic livery than 1/3 of a 3 different classic liveries.
Jockey Ewing
26th May 2023, 15:19
“Bolder than Bold” with “Visionary” engine cover. And I could get away without the stripes on the nose as well.
Generally my problem with “Bolder than Bold” is that I consider the orange stripes a bit strange. But I like the usage of the two blues.
GeeMac (@geemac)
26th May 2023, 15:45
Wow, surprised at the negative comments after the love that the hideous McLaren Triple Crown livery got. Clearly three blocks of colour stickerbombed with sponsor logos is what the people want these days…
Coventry Climax
26th May 2023, 21:33
‘Bolder than bold’, by a mile. But I would like it even more if it had the round and even bigger ’23’s’ like in the ‘Heritage’.
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
26th May 2023, 22:22
Fair play to Williams – they’ve earned the use of three of the all-time great racing liveries. Rothmans, Martini and Gulf. What they’ve made of those opportunities is another matter – a bit messier than we’d have hoped for. Maybe they just worked better on a sportscar than a single-seater.
But something still stirs the soul about a Gulf could Williams, way more than any corporate-coloured car with Sportswashing and Turgid neatly printed on the side ever will.
Crawliin-from-the-wreckage (@davedai)
27th May 2023, 1:09
Great work by Williams not letting McLaren have the F1 Offensive To The Eye championship 🏆 without a real fight.