National racing colours began with the Gordon Bennett Cup. Rosso corsa and British racing green outlived the rules that created them.
Italian racing cars are red because the early international colour scheme, formalised in 1903, ended up giving Italy red. British cars were green after the 1903 Gordon Bennett Cup in Ireland, where Napiers were painted shamrock green in tribute to the hosts. Sponsor liveries replaced national colours in Formula One from 1968.
Ferrari clinched the 1964 Formula One world championship with a car that was not red. For the last two races of the season, the Grands Prix of the United States and Mexico, John Surtees drove a Ferrari 158 painted white and blue, because Enzo Ferrari wanted to protest against Italian racing authorities.
That only makes sense in a world where the colour of a racing car belonged to a nation. The scheme of national racing colours explains why Italian cars were red, British cars were green and German cars ended up silver, and why a Ferrari could be anything but red when someone else entered it.
What is rosso corsa?
Rosso corsa is Italian for racing red, the red that cars entered by Italian teams carry in international racing. Since the 1920s Italian race cars from Alfa Romeo, Maserati and Lancia, and later Ferrari and Abarth, have worn it. It was the customary national colour recommended between the wars by the bodies that became the FIA. In the same scheme German cars were white or silver, French cars blue and British cars green.
No one ever formally defined the shade. There is general agreement, though, that it corresponds to Pantone 185 C.
The colour of a racing car followed the nationality of the team that entered it, not the country that built it or the driver at the wheel.
How did national racing colours begin?
Talk of a scheme started with the Gordon Bennett Cup in 1900, and three years later the Association Internationale des Automobile Clubs Reconnus formalised it. Italy was first handed black, a colour that lasted only a couple of years before, for reasons nobody knows, Italian cars moved to the red that had been reserved for the United States.
The British side of the story starts with Count Eliot Zborowski, father of the interwar racer Louis Zborowski, suggested giving each national entrant its own colour at the time of the Gordon Bennett races. Every part of the car had to come from the competing country and the driver had to share its nationality, and each race was hosted by the country that had won the year before. When Britain first entered, in 1902, the flag colours of red, white and blue had gone: the United States, Germany and France had taken them for the 1900 race. Selwyn Edge competed in a green Napier and won.
A fixed palette emerged so that spectators could tell which nation's team they were watching.
Which colour belonged to which country?
| Country | Racing colour | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Italy | Red (rosso corsa) | Originally black; red adopted after a couple of years |
| France | Blue (Bleu de France) | French racing blue |
| Germany | White, then silver | Silver added after the 1934 Eifelrennen |
| Britain | Green (British racing green) | From the 1903 Gordon Bennett Cup |
| United States | White with blue stripes | Red had originally been reserved for the US |
| Japan | White and red | Part of the same scheme |
| Belgium | Yellow | Seen at the 1961 Belgian Grand Prix |
Why is British racing green green?
The British story starts in Ireland. After Edge's win the 1903 Gordon Bennett race was held there, since road racing was against the law in Great Britain, and as a mark of respect to their Irish hosts the English Napiers were painted shamrock green. Many of the earliest British racing greens were therefore lighter olive, moss or emerald shades. Darker greens became common later, with a return to lighter ones from HWM and other teams in the 1950s.
British racing green has no exact hue. It sits close to Brunswick, hunter and forest green, with RAL 6005 as a reference, and in motorsport the phrase originally meant just green. Its link to a specific shade developed outside the sport. At first the rule applied only to the grandes epreuves, but it was later written into the FIA's Code Sportif International for all international-level events. A 1953 colour-mixing book from Imperial Chemical Industries gives one recipe, listing Light Brunswick Green at 71%, Middle Brunswick Green at 19%, white at 7% and black at 3%.
What did Prince Borghese have to do with Italy's red?
One story ties the colour to the 1907 Peking to Paris race. Prince Scipione Borghese, an Italian nobleman, was first into Paris in an Itala, accompanied by the Daily Telegraph journalist Luigi Barzini and a valet-turned-mechanic, Ettore Guizzardi, who carried a stock of Lanson champagne. Borghese felt so safe in the lead that he swung hundreds of miles off course to St Petersburg for a team dinner, then went back to Moscow and carried on.
Chief among his pursuers was Charles Goddard, a funfair worker and swindler who had never sat in a car before a loose piece of newsprint first told him about the race. Goddard came second, short of resources, begging other competitors for fuel and setting a 24-hour non-stop driving record in a desperate chase. He was arrested for fraud near the finish. The prince's prize was a magnum of Mumm champagne, and Italy adopted the red of his Itala as its racing colour in his honour.
What are the shades of Italian racing red?
Within rosso corsa each Italian maker developed its own tone. Rosso Ferrari is defined as lighter. Alfa Romeo's rosso Alfa is darker, although the company has also been tied to green through the Biscione emblem and the green Quadrifoglio marking its sporting models. Lancia's rosso Montebello is oxblood, later decorated with a thin yellow-and-blue stripe echoing the arms of Turin. Maserati's red is an oxblood tending to brick.
Why were some Ferraris not red?
The key rule was that the colour followed the nationality of the entering team, not the country that built the car or the driver. That is why Ferraris appear in other liveries. Juan Manuel Fangio raced a light blue and yellow one at Monza in 1949, the Swiss Espadon team ran one in white and red for Rudolf Fischer, and Peter Whitehead's was green. Maserati's 8CTF, which took the Indianapolis 500 in both 1939 and 1940 for the American privateer Boyle team, retained a metallic take on the house maroon, and the Lancia D23 was painted light blue for its debut at Monza in 1953.
In Formula One the rule held until 1968. Privateer Ferraris from other countries carried their own national colours right up to the 1961 Belgian Grand Prix, where Olivier Gendebien entered one in Belgian yellow and finished fourth, behind three red works Ferraris driven by Phil Hill, Richie Ginther and Wolfgang von Trips. Then came 1964. Ferrari took the championship with Surtees after running the last two races in white and blue Ferrari 158s entered by the American NART team, a protest over a deal between Ferrari and Italy's racing authorities concerning a planned mid-engined car. NART entries in 1965 and 1969, and a Reg Parnell car at the 1966 Italian Grand Prix, stayed red, which made the 1964 Mexican Grand Prix the final outing for a non-red Ferrari in Formula One.
How did British green cars do on the track?
Green-liveried Sunbeams won the 1912 Coupe de l'Auto and, in 1923 and 1924, the European Grand Epreuves, driven by men such as Henry Segrave and K.L. Guinness; they were the last British team to win it for decades. In the 1920s Bentleys were highly successful at Le Mans, all in mid to dark green. The darkest shade is first recorded on the Bugatti of William Grover-Williams in the first Monaco Grand Prix in 1929, and that shade has been called British racing green ever since.
The 1950s and 1960s brought Aston Martin, Vanwall, Cooper, Lotus and BRM to the front in Formula One and sports cars, each in a different green, while the British Racing Partnership used a very pale one. Teams from Scotland, among them Ecurie Ecosse and Rob Walker Racing, ran dark blue, outside the strict rules but tolerated. Brabham, Australian-owned but British-based, used a green with a gold stripe, later yellow, for Australia's sporting colours. McLaren's first race, the 1966 Monaco Grand Prix, saw the M2B in white with a green stripe, standing in for the fictional Yamura team of the film Grand Prix.
Because a nation was represented by its team, not its constructor, British privateers painted foreign-built cars green. Stirling Moss drove three races in 1954 in a British racing green Maserati 250F entered by Equipe Moss.
When did sponsors replace national racing colours?
Teams, led by Team Lotus, lobbied to carry Gold Leaf colours on its Lotus 49, and in 1968 the sponsorship regulations were relaxed. Lotus appeared in the new colours at the 1968 Spanish Grand Prix, the first works team to do so after Team Gunston's privately entered Brabham at the 1968 South African Grand Prix. In 1970 the FIA formally exempted Formula One from the national colours ruling, and green quickly disappeared in favour of sponsors. The exemption has since been extended to every series unless specific regulations require national colours.
Unlike most teams, Ferrari always kept red, though the shade drifted. From 1996 to 2007 its Formula One cars were a brighter, almost day-glo orange to compensate for television colour balance, since the original rosso corsa can look dark brown on older sets. The Ferrari F310B of 1997 moved the tone toward the corporate colour of Marlboro. Rosso corsa itself returned at the 2007 Monaco Grand Prix, and there have been occasional variations: metallic on the 2007 F2007, dark red on the 2013 F138 and matte on the 2019 SF90. At the 2020 Tuscan Grand Prix the cars wore the original colour to mark Ferrari's 1000th Formula One race.
Where do the colours survive today?
Red still dominates Ferrari, and nearly 80 percent of all Ferraris sold are rosso corsa. Ducati has used red on its official competition motorcycles since 1988, the first year of the Superbike World Championship, after Cagiva moved that way in the 1980s. Alfa Romeo and Ferrari are traditionally red in other championships, including Supertouring and the 24 Hours of Le Mans and Daytona. Maserati has run white and blue since the 2000s, and Abarth white with red flashes. The Lancia Delta HF Integrale that won the 1989 Rallye Sanremo carried Martini stripes over rosso corsa. Even beyond cars, the Italian bobsleigh team has used red-shelled sleds and its alpine ski team has sometimes worn red suits.
Green has been revived too. Jaguar Racing brought it back to Formula One in 2000, until Ford sold the team to Red Bull in 2004. Bentley returned to Le Mans in 2001, 2002 and 2003 and won with the Speed 8, painted a very dark British racing green, and Aston Martin raced DBR9s in a light one. Lotus returned to Formula One in 2010 after 16 years with a dark green and yellow T127. Mazda built a British Racing Edition of the MX-5 in 1991 and 2001, and Mini offers a green option, refreshed in 2011. British racing green is now often metallic, because manufacturers offer fewer solid colours.
Is British racing green back in Formula One?
In 2020 Lawrence Stroll bought a stake in Aston Martin, and for 2021 the AMR21 appeared in British racing green as Aston Martin returned to Formula One as a constructor after 61 years. The livery was still in use as of 2026, most recently on the Aston Martin AMR26.
