8 Ugliest F1 cars including Michael Schumacher’s first Ferrari and ‘large sex toy’

We’ve now seen all 10 liveries that will be on track for the 2025 Formula 1 season.

The teams showed off their new paintjobs at the glitzy season launch event at London’s O2 Arena earlier this week. And, in a few days’ time, we’ll get to see what the actual aerodynamic designs of the cars will look like when they hit the track in Bahrain for three days of pre-season testing.

Given the rather prescriptive nature of car design rules in F1 these days, and the fact the regulations have been stable for a few years now, none of them are going to look particularly out of the ordinary. Which is probably for the best seeing as the sport’s history is littered with plenty of examples of how badly things can go wrong when designers are given free rein.

From six-wheeled cult classics to phallic shockers, and an unfortunate first Ferrari for Michael Schumacher to be given after his big move from Benetton, Mirror Sport has delved through the archives to remind you of some truly awful F1 cars.

Caterham CT05 – 2014

The first season of F1’s ‘Hybrid Era’ and a massive new set of regulations that meant cars looked a whole lot different to before. And sadly, that meant plenty of unfortunate appendages being attached to the front nose. Pretty universally regarded as being the worst, though, was the CT05 created by the short-lived Caterham outfit.

They redesigned it mid-season but that did nothing to take away from this monstrosity. How not one person at the factory looked at the finished product and said to their colleagues: “See, what we’ve gone and done here is we’ve put a large sex toy on the front of our car,” is a mystery.

March 711 – 1971

Imagine for me, if you will, that they first revealed this car from back to front. “Yep, normal-looking rear wing, nice colour, lovely aerodynamic cockpit… wait, er, why is there a surfboard superglued to the front of it?”

There’s also the not insignificant matter of the entirely uncovered engine, which hardly seemed ideal in a period of rampant unreliability in the sport. Still, though, they must have done something right as ‘Superswede’ Ronnie Peterson finished runner-up to Sir Jackie Stewart in the drivers’ championship while driving it.

Tyrrell P34 – 1976-77

One of the most famous classic F1 cars, the six-wheeled Tyrrell has become a cult favourite among fans of motorsport history. I’m sad to say, however, that fact doesn’t take away from just how horrible it looked.

The innovative design was used over two seasons and had lots of success in the first. Jody Scheckter led a one-two finish at the 1976 Swedish Grand Prix and Tyrrell finished third in the championship. But the B-spec used the following year was much less competitive and the rules were later changed to limit all F1 cars to four wheels. Thankfully.

Ferrari F310 – 1996-97

With very few exceptions, Ferrari make some of the most beautiful F1 cars. The 1996 is one of those rare exceptions, and it just happened to be the first racing machine that they made after luring Schumacher, already a double champion by that point, to join them.

With a nose that was both pointy and stubby at the same time, huge gaping sidepod inlets and a blocky and bulky frame around the top of the cockpit, the F310 did not scream Italian luxury. They used it for two years, including a better-looking B-spec in 1997, and won several races but finished as runners-up to Williams in both seasons.

Ensign N179 – 1979

“Folks, we’ve forgot to put radiators in the car!” said one engineer, desperately, shortly before the 1979 season began. But another replied: “Don’t worry, we’ll just weld a massive one on the front and call it a day.” That almost certainly wasn’t a genuine conversation that took place at Ensign HQ, but it’s hard to imagine how else this happened.

As is the case with several cars on this list, the N179 was later redesigned to get rid of the truly ugly elements. But that doesn’t erase those original decisions from history and, from now until the end of time, we have photo evidence that the ‘cheese grater’ F1 car existed. The cooling effects to the engine were probably great, but that doesn’t make it any less heinous, while it was also notably uncompetitive.

Ligier JS5 – 1976

A few of the cars on this list have at least a few redeeming features, but not this nightmarish effort. Naturally, the eyes are immediately drawn to the huge growth on top of it reminiscent of the head of a beluga whale which, presumably, was created to raise the airbox as high up as possible.

Some other teams who tried something similar did it well, but not Ligier. It was a horrible bulbous mess which was later removed, but that also wasn’t the only problem with how the JS5 looked. Just look at the size of those front wing endplates! Truly nasty.

Arrows A2 – 1979

If you’re going to cover a car entirely in gold paint, it had best be a good looking car. Mission failed, Arrows. All they did with their colour scheme is draw even more attention than was necessary to a truly horrible-looking racing machine.

Why, oh why, did it not have a front wing? And who thought it was a good idea to make the sides of the rear wing go higher than the actual wing itself? The A2 only actually finished at four races, with Jochen Mass guiding it to two sixth-placed finishes but also failing to even qualify in it twice.

McLaren M7C – 1969

Ferrari aren’t the only one of the big historic teams still racing in F1 today guilty of creating a monster. The oldest car on this list, the McLaren M7C should have been a beauty, but there are a couple of major problems – and, inexplicably, they’re both on stilts.

I’ve asked the question “why?” a lot in this piece up to now, so I’ll refrain from doing so again. But if putting the rear wing on scaffolding wasn’t bad enough, they went and did it on the front one as well. Plus, it was halfway up the nose! Take them both off and it’s not an ugly car, but in this spec? Yikes.