[BTCC] BTCC 2022 season discussion, News and Rumours!

[Pdh]

Originally Posted by antnee

You would think the teams want their cars to stand out more so the sponsors get better coverage. It is frustrating not being able to work out who is who straight away.

There was a lot of black based liveries this year, 5x BMWs, 5x Hondas, 2 Focus and from some angles 4 Cupras. That's 16 cars out of 29! The Toyotas, Hyundai's and Infinitis were easy enough to pick out, but the MB Focus and Astras looked similar.

But you must understand that the teams can only do their livery in the colours that represent their sponsors. The fans are the last people teams need to please with their liveries it’s the people that pay the money to keep the teams in business.
I remember not long ago people were moaning about to many white cars on the grid

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by porsche962fan

Ditto with Dynamics and BTC

the Infinitis all being the same like many other teams ,

So if I'm understanding this correctly, you:
A) struggle to tell the difference between a black car with Orange/White sponsorship and a grey car with bright pink accents
B) have issues with a team running the same livery on 3 cars

[porsche962fan]

with teams running more cars with same liveries it would have helped to have more pronounced small differences like banner color and mirrors but that is often not case anymore

again the Hyundais have done it best !! , 4 of them on the grid but you could easy tell who is who

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by porsche962fan

with teams running more cars with same liveries it would have helped to have more pronounced small differences like banner color and mirrors but that is often not case anymore

again the Hyundais have done it best !! , 4 of them on the grid but you could easy tell who is who

The Excelr8 cars were all different because of sponsorship. If they had a title sponsor across the whole team, all 4 cars would have been the same.

Different mirrors is exactly what Laser Tools did.
Sutton - Blue
Moffat - White
Boardley - Gold

WSR / Halfords / BTC had different sunstrip colours.

[porsche962fan]

they could have been better like say Red, green, yellow mirrors and Sutton or Moffat should have reversed banner white with blue letters

[sceptic]

Originally Posted by porsche962fan

they could have been better like say Red, green, yellow mirrors

But those are not colours found anywhere else in the livery. You can't just keep adding colours to a design.

It's a blue and white car, so having one with white mirrors and one with blue mirrors makes a lot of sense. And it's a dark enough shade of blue that you can easily differentiate it from white.

Boardley having gold mirrors is a throwback to his world championship.

[porsche962fan]

back in the super touring days there was no such issue , take Audi for example they often had mirror colors not found on the livery

[S griffin]

For me it’s not trying to identify different drivers in a team, but identifying different teams that was the main problem during the season. If you can identify the team, you can guess who it is most of the time by what position they are in

[sceptic]

Originally Posted by porsche962fan

back in the super touring days there was no such issue , take Audi for example they often had mirror colors not found on the livery

Not really true.
It was a silver and red livery.
Bintcliffe had silver mirrors, Muller had red mirrors, Biela had gold mirrors.

[porsche962fan]

Originally Posted by sceptic

Not really true.
It was a silver and red livery.
Bintcliffe had silver mirrors, Muller had red mirrors, Biela had gold mirrors.

in 96 Bintcliff had silver banner and mirrors and Biela had yellow banner and mirrors so it was very easy to tel them apart

[crmalcolm]

So
2021 - team runs a 3-car livery with different mirror colours for each driver. 2 based on the base livery, 1 gold. A serious problem.
1996 - team runs a 3-car livery with different mirror colours for each driver. 2 based on the base livery, 1 yellow. No issue.

[porsche962fan]

Originally Posted by crmalcolm

So
2021 - team runs a 3-car livery with different mirror colours for each driver. 2 based on the base livery, 1 gold. A serious problem.
1996 - team runs a 3-car livery with different mirror colours for each driver. 2 based on the base livery, 1 yellow. No issue.

nice strawman

[antnee]

Originally Posted by S griffin

For me it’s not trying to identify different drivers in a team, but identifying different teams that was the main problem during the season. If you can identify the team, you can guess who it is most of the time by what position they are in

This. When cars are a tiny dot on a screen and you are trying to pick out what car it is in a split second, you can't pick out the minute colour differences, you only see the base colour.

Teams could be a lot more inventive with their colour schemes and in turn get more exposure for their sponsors.

[Matt K]

What's wrong with two or three cars of the team having the same livery? In 'gold days' of motorsport most teams had the same livery around two or three cars and it only showed level of involvement of a main sponsor. If there are three Infinitis or three BMWs in the same livery then it's a reason to be happy about in my opinion.

[Evantra]

Originally Posted by Matt K

What's wrong with two or three cars of the team having the same livery? In 'gold days' of motorsport most teams had the same livery around two or three cars and it only showed level of involvement of a main sponsor. If there are three Infinitis or three BMWs in the same livery then it's a reason to be happy about in my opinion.

Yeah agreed, think it shows a certain level of professionalism. Though much prefer the differentiating windscreen strips than mirrors.

A lot of liveries this year just lacked colour... WSR, BTC, Dynamics, HARD, Motorbase. Yes that's down to the title sponsors but surely if you're paying that much to get your logo noticed you'd want the car to be... noticeable!

[Nononsensecapeesh]

Originally Posted by Evantra

Yeah agreed, think it shows a certain level of professionalism. Though much prefer the differentiating windscreen strips than mirrors.

A lot of liveries this year just lacked colour... WSR, BTC, Dynamics, HARD, Motorbase. Yes that's down to the title sponsors but surely if you're paying that much to get your logo noticed you'd want the car to be... noticeable!

I agree and this is what I meant when I said this, I feel, started to become the case in 2019.

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by Evantra

A lot of liveries this year just lacked colour... WSR, BTC, Dynamics, HARD, Motorbase. Yes that's down to the title sponsors but surely if you're paying that much to get your logo noticed you'd want the car to be... noticeable!

I can see the point you are making - but I'm not certain I fully agree about the profile that the sponsors are maintaining.

The most obvious schemes that may appear to 'clash' are in the WSR / Ciceley cars (from front on).
But - I wonder if you asked spectators who sponsored Ciceley, I expect Car Gods would be a common reply.
In the case of Halfords / Cataclean - I think they too have done well in getting brand awareness.
Laser Tools (the team highlighted in this thread for having 3 similar cars) have also come away as a noticeable name.
The brand that were not as succesful (IMO) were the 3 non-Ginsters cars, the Blue Square partners and the HARD.

[antnee]

Originally Posted by crmalcolm

I can see the point you are making - but I'm not certain I fully agree about the profile that the sponsors are maintaining.

The most obvious schemes that may appear to 'clash' are in the WSR / Ciceley cars (from front on).
But - I wonder if you asked spectators who sponsored Ciceley, I expect Car Gods would be a common reply.
In the case of Halfords / Cataclean - I think they too have done well in getting brand awareness.
Laser Tools (the team highlighted in this thread for having 3 similar cars) have also come away as a noticeable name.
The brand that were not as succesful (IMO) were the 3 non-Ginsters cars, the Blue Square partners and the HARD.

You are way over analysing this - when the cars are moving on circuit it is difficult to pick them out when the base colour is the same. If the cars are easy to identify, then you 'see' them more.
Think about the yellow Shreaded Wheat liveries, very easy to pick out and you would of (maybe subconciously) focused on them a little more because you know what that car/driver is.

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by antnee

You are way over analysing this - when the cars are moving on circuit it is difficult to pick them out when the base colour is the same.

I can honestly say that the only cars I struggled to differentiate at any point were the WSR BMWs from the Car Gods BMWs. All other cars were easily, and immediately, identifiable.

[Nononsensecapeesh]

Originally Posted by crmalcolm

I can honestly say that the only cars I struggled to differentiate at any point were the WSR BMWs from the Car Gods BMWs. All other cars were easily, and immediately, identifiable.

Not everyone would have found that as easy as you did.

[S griffin]

I guess we need more money coming in from manufacturers in some ways, then we could at least get works liveries back! But that's another story

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by S griffin

I guess we need more money coming in from manufacturers in some ways, then we could at least get works liveries back! But that's another story

I think even then some would still find cause to complain.
The closest we have to a works livery in 2021 has been criticised already!

[Greem]

I'm suddenly reminded of something...

5minute.mp3

[Matt K]

Originally Posted by crmalcolm

I think even then some would still find cause to complain.
The closest we have to a works livery in 2021 has been criticised already!

That's certain, although it has to be said, BMW's works livery is not the best one - at least for me ofc. Doesn't stand out too much. Yes, it's clean, professional and probably gives quite an exposure for sponsors/partners but, I'd much rather see Team BMW's livery in colour scheme similar to BMW's factory team in FE. In my opinion, combination of white and blue represents BMW a lot better than black with minor BMW M colours.

As for, Dynamics, Halfords has such a distinctive orange colour (those Integras were so beautiful and iconic) and it's a shame current Halfords Racing don't have more orange. Black made them a bit anonymous.

Out of black cars, I think, the most distinctive was Cicely BMW. But maybe if you ask me tomorrow, I'd say otherwise

[crmalcolm]

Originally Posted by Matt K

I'd much rather see Team BMW's livery in colour scheme similar to BMW's factory team in FE. In my opinion, combination of white and blue represents BMW a lot better than black with minor BMW M colours.

It was interesting to observe ahead of the season how the majority of the BMW global motorsport presence seemed to be converging on a black-based scheme. Yet since then, a lot of the teams have moved away from a fully black base colour.

I wonder if the trend will revert back to a lighter colour for 2022 - and we'll be complaining about too much white on the grid?
(Although colour options are probably a bit lower in BMW's corporate image profile at the moment in lieu of grille design )