Badger’s advent calendar of articles continues…

It’s a tricky question – there have been hundreds of different shapes, colour schemes and radical designs over the years of grand prix racing, but everyone has their favourite F1 cars.  Here are some of our favourites, followed by reasons as to why.  Let us know your favourites in the comments below and we’ll compile a list of Badger’s Top 10 F1 cars…  So, in no particular order:

Nigel Mansell’s Williams from championship success year of 1992.  It’s an eye-catching colour scheme with the Camel cigarettes yellow contrasting with the deep blue, with the distinctive “Canon” emblazoned rear wing.  Mansell’s red ‘5′ just completes the look of the car.  As for the shape and design, this, in many ways is the classic F1 car shape – large rear wheels, smaller front wheels, a low, swooping nose and front and rear wings that are in proportion to the rest of the car.  It’s a clean looking car and of course, a winning car, which always helps when recalling your favourite F1 machines.

Riccardo Monza – the Badger’s resident F1 anaorak, brought this to the table – Gilles Villeneuve’s 1982 Ferrari (aka the 126C2) – Just an absolutely superb looking car (especially without front wings) complete with turbo power, driven by Gilles Villeneuve, Didier Pirroni, Mario Andretti and Patrick Tambay, in a season mixed with tragedy and success, going on to win the 1982 Constructor’s Championship.

Another popular favourite is the Lotus79 – beautiful shape, classic JPS colour scheme, and cleverly designed ground-effect “wing-cars” by Colin Chapman, that won the 1978 Driver’s and Constructor’s Championship with Mario Andretti and Ronnie Peterson at the controls – quite brilliant!

Going back in time a bit, here’s the Ferrari 156C – fondly remembered as the “Sharknose” with it’s icon front air intake creating a striking presence on the track.  Combined with the “blood red” Ferrari paint scheme, it was a car to to be feared.

Possibly the greatest machine in the classic British Racing Green ever – back in the day, F1 cars had very little, if any sponsorship and so, instead looked clean and almost understated with just a large number on the front and side so the spectators could keep track of who was who.  The Vanwall is a particular favouite due to it’s impressive clean flowing lines, and like all great F1 cars, it looked to be doing a hundred miles an hour when parked in the pits.

Moving on to the barmy, but highly memorable Brabham “fan” car.  (Otherwise known as the BT46B) – A great triangular body shape designed by Gordon Murray, with a ridiculous suction fan fitted on the back for extra massive downforce, then taken to victory at its first outing in Sweden in 1978 by Niki Lauda, then promptly banned, but a version without the fan was allowed to race thereafter, but wasn’t as interesting.

And finally, another classic is the ‘red’ and white McLaren, powered by a Honda engine and sponsored by Marlboro – a classic colour scheme that ran for years, aside from the Ferrari red, this has to be one of the most recognisable colour schemes in the sport.  It was the livery during the epic Prost vs Senna battles and saw many a world championship.

So what do you think – do you agree with our choices here at the Sett?  There are bound to be some classics that we’ve missed, let us know in the comments below and let us know what your favourite car is and why…