F1 News
Aston Martin considers new colour: 'Weight is also a big factor'
- GPblog.com
There's a big chance that next season we'll see Aston Martin driving around with a new paint colour. The reason for this is that the current dark green colour isn't very appealing. Especially on TV, the green doesn't show to full advantage and the car often resembles the black Mercedes cars. This has to change.
A beautiful color in real life
Otmar Szafnauer is very pleased with the colouring in real life. "I think it's a beautiful colour in the sun and when you look at it in real life," the Aston Martin team boss told Motorsport.com. "But I think we need to look at how we can make the colour stand out a bit more on television, without losing the green colour. I don't know if we can do that, but that's one of the things we're trying to do, just to make sure it stands out on TV from some of the other dark cars."
Weight as a key factor
Ahead of the American Grand Prix, Szafnauer let it be known that the colour scheme for next year is now being looked at closely. "We had a senior team management meeting and we started talking about next year's paint. How much of the car we are going to paint next year and with what colour." It's not just purely about the colour of the paint though. "Weight is also a big factor. We need to get as much weight out of it as we can. So we're just working on that now."
One of the new rules for next season is the minimum weight of 792 kilograms. This weight was raised earlier this week, but the teams think it will be difficult to get anywhere near it without being forced to use expensive weight-saving materials. This is because of the budget cap. Teams will want to save as much money as possible and still get as close to the minimum weight as possible.