Oilpressure

It’s race week! I’ve been following the sport of IndyCar racing for a long time. No matter how many years I’ve been a fan, one of my favorite rituals just before the start of any season is catching my first look of a new livery.

In the days before the internet, we used to have to rely on racing magazines to give us glimpses at how different a car might look for the upcoming season. My subscriptions in the early nineties were Racer, AutoWeek and IndyCar Racing Magazine. I’ll never forget how shocked I was to see the classic Valvoline livery carried by Al Unser, Jr. for so many years change into something quite ugly in 1994, then explode with color in 1995. I still preferred the Little Al livery. Change is Bad!

Back then, cars seldom changed their looks once the season started. Nowadays, liveries change regularly throughout the season. Few cars will carry the exact same livery through all seventeen races. Either corporate sponsors will rotate throughout the season or the primary sponsor will introduce a special paint scheme for the Indianapolis 500 or a retro-themed livery elsewhere in the season.

Given all that, here are just some of the new or updated liveries we can expect to see either at the beginning of the season this weekend at St. Petersburg, or at least at some point, in numerical order

Pato O’Ward:  The No. 5 Arrow McLaren SP car driven by Pato O’Ward will be given a subtle update for 2022. There will be more more McLaren papaya orange with light blue accents to go along with the black sidepods Less black and more color is good on most race cars, AJ Foyt’s Copenhagen Lola being one of the few exceptions. (Photo: McLaren.com)

Felix Rosenqvist:  The driver of the No. 7 car may be on the hot seat, but Arrow McLaren SP have given him a very cool looking car. Last year, it was too easy to confuse the orange and blue Vuse car with Scott Dixon’s PNC Bank livery. They both featured the same shades of orange and blue. For 2022, they have given Rosenqvist’s car a much softer shade of blue – more of an aqua marine or sea foam blue. (Photo: IndyCar.com)

Alex Palou:  The defending series champion will have a very minor change to his NTT Data car in 2022. Some probably won’t even be able to notice the change. His familiar light blue car will carry some gold trim outlning the white stripes running the length of his car. (Photo: Ganassi Racing)

Will Power:  Possibly one of the most dramatic changes to a car also happens to be an improvement. Will Power’s silver Verizon car had grown very stale looking, in my opinion. Last year, he carried a matte black Verizon 5G livery. Everyone knows how I feel about matte finishes on race cars and football helmets. Neither should ever exist. For 2022, Power will be in a gradient red to black car. Some will be surprised that I like this, but from what I’ve seen – I really do. (Photo: RaceFans.net)

David Malukus:  The driver is new and so is the livery. David Malukus has turned a few heads in his short time in the Dale Coyne car. I am assuming this is the same car/team that Ed Jones lulled us to sleep with last season. I like the Maulkus car, but it sort of reminds me of Al Unser, Jr.s Tickets.com car in 2000. (Photo: Dale Coyne Racing)

Conor Daly:  While I still don’t fully understand crypto-currency – who am I kidding? I don’t understand it at all – I love the look at Conor Daly’s BitNile sponsored car. At a glance, it may look like some of the Carvana schemes that Jimmie Johnson drove last year, but can you really go wrong with blue and gold? (Photo: Ed Carpenter Racing)

Alexander Rossi:  This is a dramatic change that I don’t like. Rossi’s NAPA Auto Parts scheme was one of the best looking and lost distinctive liveries on the grid for the last few seasons. Last year, the car went back and forth between the blue and yellow NAPA scheme and the not-so-iconic pink and gray AutoNation livery. For this year, they are combining the two liveries into something of a mish-mash that just doesn’t work. The only time I’ve seen pink and blue go together was on the Amway cars of Scott Brayton in the early nineties. This attempt falls way short of that. (Phot: RaceFans.net)

Romain Grosjean:  It’s only fair to Grosjean that they tweak the looks of this car just a little bit. You don’t want fans to look at this car and immediately think of the former occupant, Ryan Hunter-Reay. They didn’t change a whole lot, but enough that I thought it needed to be listed. (Photo: RaceFans.net)

Devlin DeFrancesco:  He may be a fast rookie with sponsorship, but his car is not very attractive. Without having seen it in person yet, it appears to be day-glo lime green and orange. I’ve seen where some compare it to the Menard’s Glidden cars driven by Gary Bettenhausen. I don’t think so.  (Photo: IndyCar.com)

Jack Harvey:  New team, new sponsor for Jack Harvey. He ditches the pink and black from Meyer Shank Racing for the Hy-Vee colors. I’ve been told there will be three Hy-Vee schemes this season, but this is what Harvey showed up with at Sebring last week. It looks similar to Power’s Verizon car from 2021, but better. (Photo: RaceFans.net)

Takuma Sato:  The two-time Indianapolis 500 winner moves to Dale Coyne this season and will take over the Nurtec car vacated by Romain Grosjean. Last year, this car was practically all-purple, which I thought really made it pop. For 2022, the car takes a slight step backward, in my opinion, by incorporating a lot of white into the scheme. It still looks good, but I liked this car better last year. (Photo: Dale Coyne Racing)

There are probably more that I have overlooked, but these are the ones I noticed while going over photos and videos from Sebring last week. But the speculating is almost over. These liveries will all be competing in anger this weekend at the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. It’s Race Week!

George Phillips

This entry was posted on February 21, 2022 at 4:03 am and is filed under IndyCar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.