F1 should consider allowing one-off liveries

The sport's current commercial rights agreements limit teams to running the same colour scheme on both cars for the entire season.

Back in 1999, BAR famously tried to run different tobacco sponsors on its two cars but was prevented from doing so and instead ran a dual-sided livery with a zip down the middle.

Speaking at the Motorsport Leaders Business Forum in London on Wednesday, Brown said a rethink of the livery rules would be of benefit.

Asked about the idea of teams being free to run colours as they wanted, Brown said: "I think what you could see and what I would be supportive of, and it's not currently allowed, is – and IndyCar does this, as does NASCAR – is changing paint schemes throughout the year.

"I still think I'd like to see it as two cars, but if you were going to Monaco and you have a big programme going with one your partners, and for that weekend you wanted to turn it in to a Dell Technologies car or whatever the case may be, but both would be the same [you could do that].

"So the fans still knew that's McLaren, that's Ferrari, whoever the team may be.

"I think that might be a new innovation with partnerships in Formula 1 that's not quite to the extreme of seeing different cars in totally different liveries, because I think those fans are more focused on the driver."

Brown thinks that opening up livery restrictions so all 20 cars were different would perhaps be a step too far.

"I think [it doesn't happen in] Formula 1 because each team is so recognisable by its livery," he added.

"I think if you had 20 different liveries out there it might start to get confusing as to who is who, whereas in NASCAR the fans tend to be more driver-centric, so they'll recognise Jimmie Johnson in the Lowes car, whereas they recognise Fernando Alonso in a McLaren.

"So I think the sport is different."