Photo: MP Motorsport
Richard Verschoor will have a new black livery on his MP Motorsport Formula 2 car for the rest of this season after running overweight.
The patriotic colours have been swapped on the MP design, creating a mostly black with orange highlights look that is similar to that of fellow Dutch outfit, Van Amersfoort Racing.
However, a closer look reveals that the black sections are mostly unpainted carbonfibre in an attempt to reduce weight, much like several Formula 1 teams have done over recent seasons.
The strategy behind the change was confirmed by Verschoor on social media.
“Due to the unfortunate fact that the car’s weight added to my weight is currently far above the minimum limit, we decided to adjust our livery to reduce the total weight,” he said.
”I’ve also been working hard to lose some weight myself, even though there’s not much more I can do given my height.
“Being tall shouldn’t be a disadvantage. In my opinion it makes more sense to simply raise the minimum weight? I don’t know but what I do know is that this livery is fire.”
According to heights listed on the championship website, Verschoor is the tallest driver in the current F2 field at 187 centimetres (6’2”), which also makes him taller than any driver presently in Formula 1.
The sister MP car of Oliver Goethe is expected be unchanged, given that it has been running in a Red Bull livery.
Verschoor follows Formula 3 driver Ugo Ugochukwu in making a mid-season livery change this year to save weight.
The American, measured at 192cm (6’4”), gave up the orange paint on his McLaren-style livery to run an all-black livery from round six in Austria, which allowed him to meet the weight limit and coincided with an upturn in form.
Attempts to accommodate taller drivers have been a feature of recent single-seater designs. The minimum weight in F3 was also increased from 722 kilograms to 725kg in an update to the technical regulations published prior to the Spa-Francorchamps round.