Inside the design process of our Gulf Fan Livery competition

The clock is ticking in our Gulf Fan Livery Final between Bolder than Bold and Heritage, with the competition officially closing at 12pm BST on Friday 23 June.

The Final is neck and neck with both liveries having already exchanged the lead on multiple occasions. There’s still time for yet another swing; every vote matters and yours could prove decisive.

For one final time, we caught up with our Head of Creative Design, Ed Scott, and our friends at Gulf, to get some insight into the Gulf Fan Livery design process.

Throughout his time at Williams Racing, Ed has helped produce multiple liveries, but the Gulf x Williams Racing competition was a completely new challenge for him and his team.

Designing not one, but four new designs that the motorsport world could choose to see race on the track is a unique concept, especially when you throw in Gulf’s iconic colourway.

“We always want to have fun when we design a livery, you want to do something cool but that also strikes a chord,” Ed told us.

“There are so many incredibly talented fans out there that create some truly awesome concepts, all as a hobby, and me and my team are lucky enough to do this as a job.

“Of course, a lot of these concepts just won’t work from a commercial point and application point of view.”

In Formula 1, every inch of the car is an opportunity to shout to the world about us as a team and our partners.

Similarly, considerations have to be made about weight, application times and much more.

However, in the case of the Gulf Fan Livery vote, some of Ed’s usual guidelines were lifted as he was free to incorporate the iconic Gulf racing blue and orange.

“The whole point of this particular project is to really highlight and enhance our partnership with Gulf, illustrating the shared beliefs of two brands which meant we could have a tonne of fun with it.

“It was a good opportunity for our team to go a little crazy with each of the four designs, then we would review, reign in and dial down accordingly as we do with our normal liveries.”

As Ed alluded to, this is a Gulf livery takeover of the Williams Racing FW45 so everything you’d usually see on our car would have to be transferred over to the winning design, with the base colours changing.

This is a unique challenge, but one the team back at Grove have certainly embraced.

“We had to make sure each of the designs had the instantly recognisable Gulf look and feel, but also, we have to make sure that everything else on our current cars could be transferred over and represented.

“There are logos across the wings, barge boards, air box and on the nose, and these are important to making it recognisable as a Williams Racing car.”

Another element that has to be incorporated into the designs is its production. It’s not just the cars of Alex Albon and Logan Sargeant that the winning livery will be applied to, but also the hundreds of spare parts that travel the globe with the team.

“We wanted to make sure that the process is streamlined so we can reproduce it efficiently,” Ed explained.

“An F1 car is a very complex jigsaw puzzle, it's not just painted or wrapped, it’s not applied in one piece, it’s put together in multiple pieces.

“I think one of the biggest parts of this whole process is the production logistics – it’s more than just one design over two cars, it's all of the spare parts that we take to the track to race.

“Multiple sets of bodywork, multiple front and rear wings, multiple chassis, then we have to be positive that the weight of any livery we create won’t hinder performance. So, there’s plenty to consider, that’s for sure!

“It’s been a big project for the whole team and one that has been a privilege to be a part of, we just hope the fans have enjoyed it too and are looking forward to seeing their winner on the track.”