F1
Formula One cars are meant to be beautiful creations – but not everyone got the memo…
There’s an old saying that goes: ‘Beauty is skin deep, but ugly goes right to the bone’. The Formula One cars below are testament to this.
Most F1 designers don’t give a fig about their cars’ looks, as long as the thing can get around a track faster than anything else. That aesthetic nonchalance was certainly clear in the seven cars that we’ve selected as the ugliest Formula One machines of all time. Here they are in all their, er, glory.
1. March 711 (1971)
The front wing of the March 711 was nicknamed the ‘tea-tray’, but it looked more a place for the drivers to iron their overalls. This surfboard design was more suited to the water than the racetrack – preferably under water so no one has to see it ever again…
2. Arrows A22 (2001)
Because having two aero wings is too mainstream, Arrows decided they’d put a third one onto the A22. Didn’t they think the Monaco Grand Prix was tough enough without putting a big wing right in the driver's field of vision?
3. Honda RA108 (2008)
There have been plenty of stunning liveries in Formula One; Honda’s ‘Earth car’ wasn’t one of them. The RA108's visual defects weren’t helped by the actual car itself, which was far from a looker. Adding insult to injury, it only scored four points finishes all year before Honda pulled the plug on their F1 team.
4. Ligier JS5 (1976)
In 1976, the Ligier team turned up with a car that seemed to be carrying some holiday weight from the winter break. If ‘Le Smurf's’ air intake had been any taller, it would have been scraping the roof of the Monaco tunnel.
5. Ferrari F2012 (2012)
The Formula One community was stunned when Ferrari appeared to have made their 2012 car out of Lego. It didn’t get much better when most of that year’s cars followed the step-nosed design.
6. Williams FW26 (2004)
“I am the walrus,” sang John Lennon in 1967. In 2004, Williams’ FW26 joined in the chorus. The car had a radical front nose design when it debuted, but that was ditched halfway through the year for a more conventional design. Probably best.
7. McLaren MP4-29
The 2014 Formula One cars weren’t the best-looking bunch, bless them. The proboscis-type design seen on the McLaren MP4-29 was nicknamed 'The Anteater’, but fans were quick to point out a similarity to something else from the natural world…
So to sum up, we declare the ugliest F1 cars of all time to be…
- March 711
- Arrows A22
- Honda RA108
- Ligies JS5
- Ferrari F2012
- Williams FW26
- McLaren MP4-29
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