Oracle Red Bull Racing unveiled its RB22 livery this year with its first gloss finish in almost a decade.
Team Principal Laurent Mekies has described the change as marking a genuine turning point for the team, rather than a routine seasonal refresh.
The timing was deliberate. This year brought Formula 1’s biggest regulation overhaul in years, alongside Red Bull’s first season running its own engine under the Red Bull Ford powertrain name, and the team wanted the livery to reflect both.
“We all felt 26 was such a new chapter,” Mekies told Red Bull’s What It Takes series.
“Because of the biggest regulation change in history for the sport, chassis side, power unit side.
“But also because that was also the year we decided to go in with our own engines, with the Red Bull Ford powertrain. We really felt like we needed to mark that, to celebrate that.”
Mekies said the livery’s purpose extends well beyond how the car looks on track, however significant the year. Every choice on the design is judged against a single commercial test.
“Our partners’ colours are part of the livery in the very same way that our partners are part of our performance chasing,” he said.
Their name on the car is there to represent that they make the car faster in their own way. And the number one criteria when we choose a partner is are we going to get a competitive advantage out of it?
Laurent Mekies
“Their name on the car is there to represent that they make the car faster in their own way. And the number one criteria when we choose a partner is are we going to get a competitive advantage out of it?”
That principle shapes decisions made at the level of individual millimetres on the car’s surface.
David Quinn, Paint Shop Consultant, pointed to the positioning of investment firm Carlyle’s branding on the chassis as a direct example of that execution being shaped around a partner’s visibility.
“It depends on your logo,” Quinn said.
“Carlyle here on the side of the chassis, the pattern is blended so subtly over here. It’s actually down to fully dark blue in this section with no pattern, to almost give the Carlyle a little platform.”
That same commercial logic extends from the car’s surface to the wider identity built around it. Mekies said the livery’s consistency across categories has become one of the team’s most valuable assets.
“We probably have the most recognisable, the most easy to identify livery,” Mekies said.
“It applies when you see it on a rally car, an endurance car, on a MotoGP or a Formula 1 car.”
Greg Auchterlonie, Head of Brand Design, said the RB22 livery has become the most consistent identity the team has run in his time there, extending well beyond the car itself.
“From a brand side, it’s been our most cohesive identity in all the time I’ve been here,” he explained.
“Now, with the ability to shake up the livery as we have, we’ve been able to run this across every touch point. It’s ingrained everywhere.”
That reach shows up most visibly in how fans engage with the team away from the track entirely.
Caroline Buckland, Director of Marketing, said the sport’s reliance on visual identity is what makes that consistency so valuable in the first place.
“The sport is built on that emotion and recognition,” she said.
“When you see someone wearing team kit, it is the closest representation of the fact that this really matters, what we’re doing.
“Every clip, every social media post, every TV broadcast will have an aspect of the livery in it – it’s sort of our way as a brand to tell the world who we are without saying a word.”
