Perhaps the most anticipated new paint job for the 2021 season is that of the new Aston Martin. The Racing Point team will be renamed the factory team of the British manufacturer this year.
And based on the team’s new sponsor branding – plus a few teasing pictures of drivers Sebastian Vettel and Lance Stroll in their new racing suits – it looks like the cars will sport the traditional green Aston Martin color scheme.
Since the World Championship began 70 years ago, Green has graced a number of British and non-British F1 cars. The use of British Racing Green dates back to the 1903 Gordon Bennett Cup race where participants were asked to paint their cars in colors nominated for their countries (yellow for Belgium, red for Italy, blue for France, etc.) .
With the race organized by the Automobile Club of Great Britain and Ireland, but held in Ireland due to a ban on public road racing in Great Britain, the club chose Shamrock Green as the color for the British participants as a gesture for their hosts – what later became British Racing Green adopted.
READ MORE: What can we expect from Aston Martin’s true F1 return?
The race points will lose their pink for 2021 – or at least most of it
With Aston Martin putting British Racing Green back on the grid for 2021, here are eight of the coolest green cars to have raced in Formula 1 since 1950.
1. Aston Martin DBR4
Next year’s Aston Martin won’t be the first time Aston Martin has competed in Formula 1. The British manufacturer was a dominant force in sports car racing in the late 1950s and thought it could carry that dominance into Formula 1.
Unfortunately, the incredible beauty of the DBR4 and DBR5 couldn’t match the on-track performance in the six Grand Prix races the team competed in in 1959 and 1960. Aston Martin scored zero points in his time as an F1 constructor before saying goodbye. Beautiful, is not it?
READ MORE: The Aston Martin F1 Team “needs to be competitive from the start,” says Stroll
Aston Martin couldn’t score a single point in two seasons in their F1 career
2. Jordan 191
F1 folks love to override the beauty of the Jordan 191 … and we’re not going to buck this trend. Look at it! Have you ever seen a more sculptural, seductive Formula 1 car? Great.
Much like the origins of British Racing Green itself, Eddie Jordan opted for a shock of the green for his first F1 car out of consideration for his native Ireland – while Jordan, as a dealmaker par excellence, sold advertising space for the car to companies with coordinating green logos, including 7UP and Fujifilm. Smart.
The car also earns bonus points for being Michael Schumacher’s first F1 whip when Schumacher entered a race in the 1991 Belgian Grand Prix.
READ MORE: 8 Amazing Facts About Schumacher’s Iconic F1 Debut
Michael Schumacher in the breathtaking Jordan 191 on his Grand Prix debut in Spa
3. Vanwall
No matter how advanced Formula 1 cars get, there are some who always long for the days when they looked like cigar tubes and wore pretty block colors. The Vanwall, perhaps along with the Maserati 250F, is arguably the archetype of the breed. Introduced in 1955, British industrialist Tony Vandervell’s car was one of the most successful of the 1950s, scoring nine victories in 1957 and 1958 in the hands of Stirling Moss and Tony Brooks – including the 1957 British Grand Prix at Aintree, two shared the victory.
Brooks’s victory at the 1958 Nürburgring at Vanwall is one of F1’s great unsung victories, tarnished by the death of Peter Collins – while the tragedy hung over the car’s final appearance in Morocco that year, a race that Moss did however, blackened by the death of Stuart Lewis-Evans won in Sister Vanwall.
HEAR: 50’s hero Tony Brooks on Fangio and Moss in F1’s first decade
The three vanwalls of (L to R) Lewis-Evans, Moss and Brooks in the front row in Zandvoort in 1958
4. Benetton B186
Much like Red Bull with Sauber and Arrows, Benetton dipped its toes into the waters of F1 between 1983 and 1985 through sponsorship of Tyrrell, Alfa Romeo and Toleman – before the brand went all-in with the purchase of Toleman and as a constructor for itself in 1986 .
As a fashion brand amid a string of grizzled garagistas, Benetton would always do things a little differently, and the paint job for their BMW-powered B186 – green front with multicolored brushstrokes on the engine cover and the occasional even red and green painted tires – was nothing if not different.
READ MORE: Flavio Briatore at Crashgate, Schumacher versus Alonso, and wins the title for “a t-shirt maker”
The (mostly) united colors of the 1986 Benetton
5. Jaguar R5
Jaguar’s foray into Formula 1 was largely unsuccessful, but it did give us some incredibly good-looking cars proudly decked out in British Racing Green. The R5 was the last to be used by Jaguar in F1 before the team was bought out by Red Bull.
The R5 was also involved in one of F1’s most infamous publicity gags, where Jaguar encrusted the nose cones of Mark Webber and Christian Klien’s cars with a pair of $ 300,000 worth of diamonds for the 2004 Monaco Grand Prix for the film Ocean’s Twelve to support – only for Klien falls headlong against the hairpin barriers of Loews in the first round … and loses the diamond.
Christian Klien in front of one of the most expensive shunts in F1
6. Caterham CT05
Of all the roughly sculpted cars that hit the track at the start of the 2014 season – and there were a few – the Caterham CT05 was the rudest and greenest. Shiny in its British Racing Green hue, this was one of the car’s few redeeming features. The aesthetic was dominated by a pronounced step on the nose, which then went back to the pink ledge that made school children so happy.
Even with the solid line-up of Kamui Kobayashi and Marcus Ericsson – with cameos from Will Stevens and sports car ace Andre Lotterer – the car failed to score a single point this year as Caterham battled for pace and money throughout the season before he bowed from the F1 overall.
The Caterham CT05. Just don’t look at it directly …
7. Lotus 25
For many, British Racing Green will always be associated with one team and only one team in F1: Lotus. Before the advent of tobacco sponsorship, led by the team in 1968 and whose cars took on the Red, White and Gold of the Gold Leaf brand, Colin Chapman’s factory cars had always prided themselves on British Racing Green, with a splash of Norfolk mustard yellow.
Those colors on a Lotus 25 and in the hands of the great Jim Clark may give the defining image of F1 from the early to mid-1960s, with Clark leading the car to both the 1963 and 1965 drivers’ titles.
READ MORE: What Did Jim Clark Do So Well?
Clark in his Lotus 25 at the 1963 British Grand Prix
8. Lotus 80
After the Lotus 78 and 79 had swept everyone in front of him in 1978 – Mario Andretti used these cars to win this year’s drivers’ title, as Lotus also claimed the designers – Lotus had high hopes for the successor, the Lotus 80. With British Racing Green Adorned with Martini colors – a combination that almost worked – the 80 was a technological masterpiece, at least on paper, practically a car that was an entire ground effect system.
READ MORE: The Lotus 79, the F1 floor effect wonder
Unfortunately, it was also an absolute bastard for Lotus to drive. Carlos Reutemann’s apartment refused to even take part, his “porpoise” was so bad when he irregularly gained and lost downforce in corners, while Andretti fought four races in the 80s before the car was completely withdrawn.
This article was originally published in October 2020
Andretti fielded the Lotus 80 in only four Grand Prix in 1979, including in Monaco
The post Green F1 Cars: 8 of the Coolest Ever first appeared on monter-une-startup.
