In honor of the 75th anniversary of Formula 1, teams and fans gathered at The O2 in London for a first-of-its-kind season launch.
The event, hosted by actor and comedian Jack Whitehall, featured all 10 teams, their drivers, musical guests and F1 TV presenters.
After mgk, formerly Machine Gun Kelly, opened the show — despite his odd and criticism-inviting interview and early exit from the Brazilian Grand Prix in 2023 — each team had seven minutes to introduce and present its livery for the upcoming season.
Kick Sauber, finishing last in the Constructors’ Championship in 2024, was up first.
Its reveal featured drummers with illuminated green drumsticks and a video reminiscent of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” music video.
Considering Sauber was the first team to unveil its livery, it did a decent job at setting the celebration off.
The design itself was unsurprisingly green. It’s simple, and the neon hue will certainly be identifiable on the track.
The next team to present its livery was Williams Racing, playing a video showcasing the history of the team — a trend many other teams followed — and was overall underwhelming.
The most notable part of Williams’ reveal had nothing to do with the car or the drivers, but was rather Whitehall’s untraditional introduction — saying, “take it away, rizz master” to Williams team principal James Volwes.
Visa Cash App Racing Bulls poked fun at themselves with man on the street interviews about the team’s constantly-changing name by comedian Munya Chawawa.
While the video garnered a few laughs, VCARB’s livery was the real star of the show.
The mostly white body was bright and striking, featuring a tasteful gradient of blue Red Bull logos at the back of the car.
MoneyGram Haas F1 Team’s reveal to follow was as equally uninspiring as Williams’ was before.
The only American team on the grid featured country singer Kane Brown in its introduction video that, for some reason, felt out of place.
Alpine’s reveal was easily the worst of the teams. It started with a DJ set from Brian Tyler’s “Are We Dreaming” that dragged on in the limited time slot.
Tyler is an Emmy-nominated composer and created the F1 theme song, so compared to the mgk opening performance and Kane Brown’s feature, Tyler’s presence makes far more sense at this event, but it was such a missed opportunity.
I would have loved to see an orchestra perform the iconic notes of the theme live, instead of watching one man DJ to a dead crowd for almost five minutes.
Despite the uninspiring introduction, Alpine’s livery was actually one of my favorites. I appreciated the combination of bright pink and blue — especially compared to the mostly black design the team used last year.
The best reveal by far was Aston Martin.
The James Bond theme, live orchestra and singer Tems made the whole reveal feel classy and fit for Aston Martin’s brand.
Similar to on the track, Mercedes had an idea, but was unable to execute. The Mercedes car came out with a pit crew, but the team struggled with a tire change during their reveal, effectively ruining the effect they were going for.
This year’s livery featured more silver compared to last year, which I liked, but I was far from blown away.
Red Bull used most of its seven minutes to play a video of Red Bull fans following the truck around London until it reached The O2. The video felt on-brand for Red Bull, and by that, I mean it felt like a Red Bull advertisement.
The team used so much of their time on the video that it left no room to talk to their drivers about the car, which could have been intentional, given how outspoken Max Verstappen has been about his distaste for the event.
Ferrari paid tribute to its founder Enzo Ferrari before playing a video showcasing the design history of Ferrari’s cars.
The concept and execution of Ferrari’s reveal was well done, and fit for arguably the two best dressed drivers on the grid — Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc.
As the reigning Constructors Champion, McLaren was the last team to unveil its livery for the new season.
While I appreciated the team bringing some of its old F1 cars on stage, the build up was almost pointless because McLaren made no distinguishable changes to their papaya livery.
After a performance from British band Take That, all 20 drivers appeared on stage with their cars to close out the night.
Overall, the season launch was better than I expected it to be, though I don’t think this format should become a yearly occurrence.
With some tweaks to the program, I think a 100th anniversary launch could be an even better success in the future.
