F1 | Red Bull cancels special liveries to avoid adding weight

The world championship is getting into full swing and Red Bull is also reorganising itself for the final part of the season, with a plan to recover from the difficulties and win the drivers’ title. As a result, the Milton Keynes team has chosen to abandon plans to adopt some special fan-inspired liveries for the Singapore and United States Grands Prix, due to concerns about the additional weight.

The Milton Keynes-based team invited fans to create bespoke liveries that would be used at this season’s British, Singaporean and US races. The winners would not only see their designs brought to life on the RB20 cars, but would also attend the races as special guests of the team.

The first project was presented at Silverstone this year but, with the fight for both titles now looking increasingly out of reach for both McLaren and Ferrari, a change of plan was made ahead of this weekend’s race in Singapore.

During the design phase of the Singapore livery on a real-world car at the factory, it was discovered that the paint job would add around 1kg to the RB20’s weight, Motorsport.com has learned.

Although the performance difference averages only three hundredths per lap, given the fact that all the top teams are so close together, the team concluded that it could not risk compromising its championship efforts due to a marketing campaign.

So, ahead of the Singapore GP, the team has confirmed that plans for a special livery have been scrapped for the time being and that it will stick with the ‘classic’ colours for the remainder of the season. A team statement read: “Unfortunately, when we got to the testing stage of how some of the REBL CUSTMS designs might look in real life on the RB20, we found that the paint used to create these full-car bespoke liveries added weight to the RB20 bodywork.”

“As you can imagine, any additional weight compromises performance and the team continues to prioritise making this car as competitive as possible for the remainder of the 2024 season. As a result, it is with great regret that we can announce that the team has decided not to run the REBL CUSTMS liveries on the RB20 at the Singapore and United States GPs.”

The special livery used at Silverstone

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

In recent years, F1 teams have fought battles to try to fit their cars into the minimum weight limit, often sacrificing part of the livery leaving the bare carbon exposed, as Mercedes has done in the last two years. Other teams, however, have found a way to integrate black differently, such as Sauber, but it is clear that the basic idea is to save weight in a fight where even a few cents make the difference.

But as revealed by Motorsport.com earlier this year, F1 bosses are in discussions to try to reduce the excess black that has become common across the grid. FIA single-seater chief Nikolas Tombazis said: “One issue is that the cars have a bit too much bare carbon, obviously because of the weight of the paint, so the cars have a bit too much black.”

“All the teams have worked hard to change the type of paint, which today consists of very thin films, to keep the weight as low as possible.”