2013 F1 car livery vote pt. 2: And the winner is...
We were thrilled by the response to the exclusive Crash.net 2013 car livery vote, which saw almost 30,000 votes cast in total in just two weeks. Many thanks to everyone who took their time to let us know what they thought about the looks and feels of this year's generation of F1 cars.
If you missed it, you can still catch up on yesterday's bottom six countdown - which included the shock news that Red Bull hadn't made the cut, for all their championship-winning pedigree! It just shows what a hard-fought, well-earned accolade the title of Best Car Livery truly is this year.
And without further ado, it's time to find out just which team will be can take deserving full pride in their car livery design achievement in 2013...
1st place: Lotus F1 - 8.04 out of 10
Last year: 1st place
We'd love to bring you a seismic shock upset result in this year's car livery vote, but the plain realistic truth of the matter is that Lotus F1's majestic and gorgeous call-back to the 1970s John Player Special Lotus design was always going to be the winner. Even their new sponsor-led red flashes manage to add to the appeal this season. Just look at the margin they have in hand over the rest of the field - it's so crushing that not even Red Bull and Sebastian Vettel at their peak enjoyed this sort of superiority on track over the competition! It's well deserved, and we have no quibbles with the outcome - it's without doubt Crash.net readers' Best Looking Car of 2013.
2nd place: McLaren - 6.87 out of 10
Last year: 2nd place
And McLaren retains the runner-up spot as well! To be honest, their strong showing was a bit of a surprise to us last year and if anything is even more so in 2013, especially given that in the meantime they've lost a popular driver (Lewis Hamilton) and have rarely in their history looked quite this far from being able to win a Grand Prix. None of that seems to matter to their loyal fans who have confirmed the silver-and-red livery as one of the all time iconic designs in F1, although it's worth noting that their margin over third place - which was over 0.8 last year - is pretty slender this time around.
3rd place: Mercedes - 6.66 out of 10
Last year: 5th place
McLaren had better watch out, though, because their 'sister' team Mercedes are close on their tails this year. The team is up two spots in 2013 compared to their showing 12 months ago, showing just what an extra allure being a three-time winner so far this year can bring to a team and to a car. Adding the popular Lewis Hamilton to the driver line-up in place of Michael Schumacher alongside Nico Rosberg clearly didn't harm their chances in this year's vote either! Even so, it was unimaginably close between third and fourth places, with Mercedes still back in fourth place just 24 hours before the close of polling...
4th place: Ferrari - 6.66 out of 10
Last year: 3rd place
Ferrari miss out on retaining third place in this year's car livery vote by the narrowest of margins (you have to go down another decimal place to break the tie) and their battle with Mercedes over the final podium spot was without doubt the most nailbiting of the entire poll. Ferrari were ahead going into the final 24 hours but slipped behind at the last minute, despite getting over 200 more votes in total than their rivals that shows just how much passions still run as high as ever when it comes to the Prancing Horse. Last year they came third with getting on for a full point in hand over the next-best team, but evidently even the most classic of timeless designs sometimes isn't enough to compensate for a less than completely stellar performance on the track.
5th place: Caterham - 6.16 out of 10
Last year: 6th place
We said it last year, and we'll say again this time too: hurrah! We're thrilled that Caterham holds on to its spot in the top half of the car livery vote, showing that success in the 'looks' department doesn't always depend on having big money and on winning poles and podiums. Even a small backmarker team can impress as it sits on the grid, in this case thanks to a gorgeous 'racing green' design harking back to the 'classic' Colin Chapman Lotus branding of old that makes this car look both excitingly modern and appealingly nostalgic all at the same time.
That's it! Thanks again to everyone who took the time to vote this year. Don't forget, you can still read up to see how Williams, Marussia, Red Bull, Toro Rosso, Sauber and Force India fared in the bottom half of the standings.
