It looks like the leaked picture of Williams’ 2009 livery was accurate after all. These new photographs from Williams sponsor Allianz show the FW31 in what looks very much like a combination of the colour scheme seen on the leaked picture plus the sponsors layout shown on the interim car.
By my reckoning this makes the third consecutive year the Williams livery has been spotted ahead of its official unveiling. Or maybe they’re just toying with us. Either way, I reckon this is one of the best-looking cars on the 2009 grid, though I did prefer the all-dark blue look of the interim car.
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More Williams pictures
- Williams FW31 new livery spied
- Williams FW31 introduced in interim livery (2009 F1 car launches)
- Williams denies leaked photos show 2008 livery
- More spy shots: Williams FW29 livery
Via BlogF1
KAB
20th February 2009, 18:52
eurgh, why does Williams always have a better livery during testing :( I think their car is the best looking out of them all but keep the dark blue one!
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
20th February 2009, 18:55
Yeah I preferred the interim one too, but at least it doesn’t look like this.
zplol
20th February 2009, 18:55
still looks like an interim car, the airbox that was used in recent testing is smaller, this one is the same size as the 08 cars, the brake ducts are the same at the older cars, the wing is the same as the first one they used at their private airfield test…
zplol
20th February 2009, 18:56
edit… duh it has to be an 08 car since the filming would have counted as testing :P
ajokay
20th February 2009, 19:20
Same as last year then. Oh well, hopefully 2010 will be a better year for new and interesting car liveries.
Nick
20th February 2009, 19:23
should have used all blue.
Becken
20th February 2009, 19:34
I liked! :)
The new sponsos at the nose reveals that it is really the new livery!
Robert McKay
20th February 2009, 19:39
It’s gorgeous. Really like it. Although I’m worried it’s so gorgeous because it doesn’t seem to be overflowing with logos breaking up the dark blue.
Ollie
20th February 2009, 19:50
The Thomson Reuters logo? They sponsored the team last year, but their logo was on the side and top of the monocoque headrest thingies.
Michael Roberts
20th February 2009, 20:08
Best looking car by far!!
StrFerrari4Ever
20th February 2009, 20:31
i prefered the interim livery but who knows Williams could be just building some tension so us fans can be edging to know what the final livery is one of the best looking cars though but STR4 livery will be the best muhuhaha
Chaz
20th February 2009, 21:12
Cool, I like it…
gabal
20th February 2009, 22:01
They kept the last years one – looks nice and I think Air Asia looks great on rear wing. Williams got an upgrade in sponsorship from several of their sponsors – a great effort given the current financial climate…
Arthur954
20th February 2009, 22:58
Very elegant ! I hope that the blue is a deep intense metallic, and the white areas could be fluorescent white. The wheels, chromed. And if they also chromed the suspension components, the car would look like those beautiful old Lotus racers with the gorgeous chromed pieces all over the car.
Good luck to Williams ! they are the heart and soul of F1
nic
20th February 2009, 23:12
williams need to change , they have had that style since 2006. I liked williams when they were williams BMW. i would have prefered the interim desighn.
kaushal
21st February 2009, 0:06
The car is looking nice.
I cant see clearly about which sponser u r talking about
Daks
21st February 2009, 0:19
I like the livery, although the interim one was better… And I really hope Williams does well this year.
rob ijbema
21st February 2009, 0:45
it really looks awfull
so dull…like an office in Reading
or a grey roundabout!!
that nose is drooping like a wet willi…
Rob R.
21st February 2009, 2:57
I agree with the above poster, it’s really rather dull, it’s almost exactly the same as last year’s. I very much liked their 2006 and 2007 liveries… and also, when they were still with BMW their livery looked awesome. But this one isn’t anything to get excited about.
Eric M.
21st February 2009, 4:06
Not quite as good as the all blue, but still looks great. Best looking car of 09!
Damon
21st February 2009, 10:54
There’s one “mistake” I hate.
The two white lines that go along the nose’s main contours (from the cockpit down to the nosecone’s tip) should’ve gone in parrarel or gradually narrower and narrower, so it looks the proper way.
With those lines going away from each other, the nose looks like a duck’s beak. Ugly.
Apart from that, it’s still the best looking car this year. :] Low noses for the win!
Too bad it’s prolly be a backmarker this season. Again.
Eddie Irvine
21st February 2009, 16:06
I don’t think it’s gonna be a backmarker , everybody consider williams as the silent force for the upcoming season, they have done a terrific job in aerodynamics and kers performance(no batteries).
Chicken McNuggets
21st February 2009, 16:17
I agree about those white lines. I just don’t understand that. Surely, sponsors would be much happier to be associated with a car of no-compromise good looks as well, so even “making more room for logos” wouldn’t really cut it as an excuse for me. Such is the nature of aesthetics, that once you’re educated and aware enough about that, then it potentially ruins the car’s entire appearance. The livery is one area where there is no potential (as far as I’m aware!) of making the car slower, so they can do better than that. Maybe it WAS actually related to sponsor pressure, so they are who I ought to blame. If anything, it just leads me to admire McLaren all the more for their arrangement of having the Vodafone red/orange extending onto the inside of their rear wing endplates in order to offset the embarrassingly obvious narrowness of the ’09 wings. It’s a titchy little change, but just the kind of thing which is doing the rule makers a favour if you ask me, lol.
If anything I’ve always liked the appearance of the blue/white Williams which have prevailed since 2000, particularly since 2006, so I’m not personally hankering for change. All-blue, white-blue… whatever, you can see the lineage and this one looks very clean. Livery-wise, Williams have traditionally treated their car as a blank canvas for major sponsors, so I can only presume that the present ones must have simply not put any obvious pressure on them to make any drastic changes to it since the split with BMW? If the opposite was true, then it would’ve been very unWilliamsesque to have stuck with the status quo like this…
Eddie Irvine
21st February 2009, 11:22
Why… Why… Why ?????????????
Tone
21st February 2009, 13:22
I agree … the new livery changed the look of the car. It looks good!
K
21st February 2009, 13:58
Looks like old F1 car.
I think the best is MP4-24
Matt
21st February 2009, 16:06
The best looking car of 09, just edges the McLaren. The wide nose suits the immensely wide front wing. It even manages to make those thinned rear wings look good.
Patrick
21st February 2009, 17:12
nice paint, but the cars underneath are heinous.
verasaki
21st February 2009, 20:32
considering “sneak peaks” usually get more public attention than the “official unveiling”, i’d say they don’t give a hoot who snaps pics as along as the logos are prominently displayed.
i have to admit, at first glance i thought it was going to take me longer to warm up to the new designs than it has. i think the williams may be the cleanest looking design but the mclaren appeals more to my own taste just on the basis of asthetics.
Dougal
21st February 2009, 22:30
Personally I prefered the interim paint job, the deep blue suited the car better. That said, its still one of the most aesthetically pleasing cars on the grid, along with the Mclaren and Red Bull.
What is a worry to me though is the amount of empty advertising space. Yes it stops the car looking overcrowded, which is good. But as the leading independent with such a rich history, it does make me wonder about their financial security. Are they really earning enough?
Toby
22nd February 2009, 7:17
Looks like they’ve had a pre-arranged sponsorship shoot for Allianz, so put the ’08 livery onto the interim car. These photos were probably taken last year. I don’t think this can be called the “final livery”, but we can probably only expect minimal changes from last year’s livery.
While I do love the ’06, ’07 and ’08 liveries ( aswell as the BMW years’ schemes), the testing livery is better, at least for the moment. An almost midnight blue colour scheme with white sponsor logo’s would be a breath of fresh air on the current grid. With the Renault, McLaren, Force India (it seems), Red Bull and Toro Rosso’s all being a confusing array of colours, how cool to be a negative to the simple scheme of the Beamers. Go Williams, either way!!!
marnio from peru
22nd February 2009, 19:46
hello my f1 dirt bags, it marnio here from peru.
my f1 friends i tell you again, the f1 is meant to be about fun. there more to it than a procession. sometimes it like the dogs circling each other sniffing each others backside. they go round and round till they give up and sleep.
i want to see the the cars banging wheels at 200mph before one of the car cart wheels over and over down the main straight before it land in the crowd, while the other car smash into the wall and explode. i want to see the car lose a wheel whilst cornering at massive speeds. i want to see cars leaving the track like the aeroplane. i want the action,action, action. this how it were 30-40 years ago.
back then drivers like the stuntman.
they the real heros. they lay their life on the line every week. it so dangerous then the preist give them their last rites before they even start the race. but these men so brave they only wear the welding goggles and skateboard helmet. they not even wear the seat belt.
these days were the golden era of f1. then it like the feature film. the drivers like the movie stars.
now our only sense of entertainment is wondering into whose house next will the mclaren men burgle to steal the f1 secrets.
rob ijbema
22nd February 2009, 23:19
maybe you should try WWWF marnio,wrestling should be fake enough for you…or maybe a Silvester Stallone movie??
DC
23rd February 2009, 5:53
Bloomberg is reporting the Royal Bank of Scotland is going to be splitting itself into two.
I wonder how much longer they will be sponsoring Williams.
And… I wonder how long they will be sponsoring Sir Jackie Stewart.
PJA
23rd February 2009, 13:23
If this really is the final spec car and livery, then for me it comes a very close second to the McLaren in the looks department. I think the low wide nose is defiantly the best looking of the 2009 cars. I prefer the blue and white livery to the interim one also. The problem with the interim livery for me was because it was dark blue in most pictures it looked black, I agree the pictures where it does look dark blue are good.
This reminds me of when Ford brought Jaguar into F1, people complained that the British Racing Green paint scheme they were using was too light a shade (something I agreed with). An article I read at the time explained that if they had used proper British Racing Green it would have appeared black on TV.
I would have thought this affects most other colours as well. The McLaren livery is probably my favourite of the current cars, though the shade of red they use seems more like orange (just like when they had the Marlboro livery from the 80s and 90s) and to my eye the car looks a lot better when in pictures it appears silver/red rather than silver/orange.
graham228221
24th February 2009, 9:36
prefered the interim livery, especially when it looked black rather than dark blue! why hasn’t a team gone for a sexy black car for so long?
but it still looks one of the better cars in the new livery.
that rear wing still looks ridiculous =P
crossomotive
28th April 2009, 8:37
I like the blue white combination. Than red & white combo.