(Update) Le Mans: Livery mania!
Updated: Jun 9, 2019
This year's race sees an unprecedented amount of special liveries. Read all about them here (and come back for updates as more liveries are unveiled!).
Text: Rick Kiewiet
Images: Prescott, Racing Team Nederland, Porsche, Ford, JMW Motorsport, Kessel Racing, Risi Competizione, Project 1.
Rebellion Racing
You either love it, or you hate it: the special colour scheme of the Rebellion LMP1s for Le Mans. I absolute love the design by artist TomyBoy with bright neon paint splashes and graffiti, but I've also heard completely different opinions. Judge for yourself!
Racing Team Nederland
The Dallara P217 of the Racing Team Nederland has a one-time only special livery for the 2019 race at the circuit de la Sarthe. Team founder, owner and driver Frits van Eerd, also the founder of one of the biggest supermarket-chains in the Netherlands "Jumbo", has been a great fan of the former Minardi F1 team since forever.
He already chose the Minardi-yellow as the primary color for his supermarket, and designed the Racing Team Nederland logo after the Minardi F1 logo.
As a farewell to the Dallara, replaced in the 2019/2020 season by an Oreca, and an homage to Giancarlo Minardi, the car was painted in the same color scheme as the 1991 Minardi 191:
Porsche
To celebrate winning the GT Pro manufacturer's championship, two of the four Porsche's (#91 & #92, the "WEC Porsches") will be fitted with gold instead of red striping.
The two "IMSA-Porsches" will be covered in the legendary Brumos-team livery. The Brumos team won the 24 hours of Daytona in 1973, 1975, 1978 and 2009. Brumos is also linked to Hurley Haywood: 3-time winner and Grand Marshal of the coming edition of Le Mans.
Project-1 also decided to change the livery for Le Mans, creating a real "art car" in the tradition of BMW and Aston Martin in the past. To celebrate Project 1's first WEC season, the asked artist Richard Philips to design a special livery. In cooperation with Porsche Digital and its new "Second Skin" product, three of Philips' artworks are combined in the special livery.
Ford
Ford, bidding farewell to the WEC after the Superseason finale at Le Mans, covers their cars in liveries that won the race in the past.
The black livery of the #66 relates to the first win of a gt40 in 1966, the red #67 connects to the '67 race winning gt40, the #69 honours the runner-up the race in 1966 and the #68 is liveried with the same scheme as the Ford's latest winner, the 2016 Ford GT.
The Keating Motorsports GT in the Am category is suited with a Wynn's livery, commemorating Wynn's 80-years involvement in motorsport sponsoring:
Ferrari
The Risi Competizione GT Pro Ferrari is designed by students of the ENSAAMA art school in Paris. Visible are the hooves (of the Ferrari prancing horse?) and the Eifel-tower from the top.
ELMS-contender JMW Motorsport has a history of presenting special, unique liveries at Le Mans. This year, they "pay tribute to our distinctive yellow colouring, yet also pay homage to the 24 Hours of Le Mans". If you take a close look, you see references to the town of Le Mans, but, surprisingly, the WWF-logo is visible as well.
Fellow-ELMS team Kessel Racing also presented a striking livery for their two cars:
