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The Alfa Romeo F1 logo history: The Alfa Romeo racing logo
Most fans of the Formula One racing landscape will be familiar with Alfa Romeo, a leading brand in the motorsports space. However, how much do you know about the Alfa Romeo F1 logo history?
The design of the team’s iconic emblem has gone through quite a few changes over the years, inspired by brand strategy changes and sponsorship.
Like most of the logos of F1 teams managed by leading automotive companies, the Alfa Romeo F1 logo has a lot of similarities with the well-known Alfa Romeo logo.
However, this emblem doesn’t just showcase the leading automotive brand’s visual identity. It’s also an opportunity for the organization to share the spotlight with its current sponsor.
Today, we will be taking a closer look at the Alfa Romeo F1 team logo, how the design has changed over the years, and where it stands today. Let’s dive in.
Is Alfa Romeo a new F1 team?
Alfa Romeo is far from a new name in the motorsports landscape. The brand has competed in the racing industry for a number of years, both as an engine supplier and a constructor. In fact, Alfa Romeo’s history with Formula One dates all the way back to 1950.
Since 2015, Alfa Romeo has begun operating as a commercial partner for Formula One. It’s currently operated by Sauber Motorsport AG and participates in F1 under the title Alfa Romeo F1 Team Orlen.
Back in the 1960s, Alfa Romeo didn’t have an “official” presence within the Formula One landscape, but many teams were still using independently developed engines from the company in their cars.
When the 1970s rolled around, Alfa provided a Formula One engine to their own driver, Andrea de Aadamich. However, these engines didn’t score any championship points.
Later in the 70s, an engineer from Alfa Romeo named Carlo Chito designed a new engine to replace the previous 3-liter V8. This engine achieved some success in competitions.
Over the years, Alfa Romeo dropped in and out of the F1 spotlight for some time. In 2015, Alfa Romeo even appeared on the Scuderia Ferrari cars before sponsoring the Sauber team in 2018. As of 2022, Alfa Romeo has now been sponsored by the German athletics company Puma.
Alfa Romeo F1 logo history: An introduction
The Alfa Romeo F1 logo history is quite complex, with numerous different designs appearing over the years. A handful of emblems have been lost to history, but there are still numerous variations worth evaluating if you want to learn more about the brand.
During the 1950s, the Alfa Romeo F1 team logo was a world apart from the image we know today. It had no reference to the current Alfa Romeo logo at all. Instead, the team simply adopted a four-leaf clover, depicted in a classic green shade, within a black triangle outline.
For a while, Alfa Romeo didn’t have much of an official presence in the motorsports landscape. While many different brands used Alfa Romeo engines, they didn’t include the company’s branding in their own banners and signs.
When Alfa Romeo returned to the F1 industry in 1979 with the “Autodelta” brand, a new logo was introduced. This featured a triangle, like the previous design, however, with more three-dimensional elements.
Within the triangle was a checkered black and white flag, similar to those presented at the end of a race. The word “Autodelta” was written in all uppercase letters on a white banner across the flag.
In the 1980s, Alfa Romeo’s racing team entered into a sponsorship agreement with Marlboro, similar to many of the other Formula One teams of the time. In response, the company created a logo that showcased both its own branding and the core visual identity of Marlboro.
Almost the entire Marlboro logo is present within this image, with just a small amount of space dedicated to the Alfa Romeo wordmark in comparison.
When the sponsorship for Team Alfa Romeo evolved again in 1984, the organization produced a new logo. This design was far more complex than the previous variation. It featured the Benetton logo in full, as well as the Alfa Romeo wordmark and the famous serpent emblem.
The two logos were placed in contrasting colors against the image of a race car with a racing driver at the wheel. There are various lines around the driver’s helmet to indicate speed.
One of the first Alfa Romeo racing logos to focus entirely on the automotive brand itself appeared in 2019. This design included the well-known Alfa Romeo wordmark, depicted in a unique script-style font. The design was considered somewhat unusual for its lowercase A and uppercase R.
Underneath the name of the company, we see a three-color line depicting the Italian flag in reference to the organization’s home country. The word “Racing” also appears beneath the flag line in bold, uppercase red letters.
The Alfa Romeo F1 team ORLEN logo
One of the most significant changes to the Alfa Romeo F1 logo only occurred in recent years, when the company decided to double down on its sponsorship with the ORLEN petroleum company.
Orlen took on the role of Alfa’s core sponsor in 2020 and has remained with the brand throughout the 2021 and 2022 seasons. During this time, Alfa Romeo introduced two logos:
The first logo featured the standard Alfa Romeo F1 logo, as we see from 2020 above. However, it’s also separated by a line on the right from the full ORLEN brand logo.
The secondary emblem is almost exactly the same as the first.
It was unveiled in 2022 and removed the Italian flag from the banner, as well as the word “Racing.” The tagline has been replaced with simply “F1 Team” to match many other competing brands. The ORLEN symbol is also a little brighter in color here.
Now that Alfa Romeo has achieved a sponsorship with Puma, it remains to be seen whether the company will change its design yet again for the upcoming racing season.
The Alfa Romeo racing logo: Fonts and colors
The Alfa Romeo racing logo, like many of the logos throughout Formula One history, has evolved over the years to suit not just the market but the sponsorship landscape.
As the company has grown in the motorsports landscape and worked with new sponsors, it has also added new elements to its emblem. Notably, in most of the designs created for the Alfa Romeo F1 logo, the iconic emblem associated with the larger automotive company isn’t present.
Indeed, the typography used in the emblem we know today is currently unique to the F1 team, as Alfa Romeo themselves currently don’t use any such wordmark. However, the design does come from the logo history of the automotive brand.
If you want to see the Alfa Romeo F1 logo in closer detail, you can find some useful resources here:
What color is the Alfa Romeo F1 logo?
The Alfa Romeo F1 logo colors are a little different from the shades you might expect to see in the larger automotive brand’s emblem. Many of the details from the Alfa Romeo logo aren’t present.
Instead, we have a simple and refined Alfa Romeo logo color palette consisting of red, white, and black. There are two shades of red in the design, one for the ORLEN logo and another for the wording “F1 Team”. The ORLEN logo is slightly brighter.
In previous versions of the logo, the colors of the Italian flag also appeared. However, this has been removed for the most recent design.
What font does the Alfa Romeo F1 logo use?
The Alfa Romeo logo font used in the F1 logo is quite unique. It’s a script-style typeface with a lot of embellishments and curves. It also features a lowercase “a” alongside an uppercase “R,” which is quite unusual. Though the font is unique to the company, there’s a similar downloadable option here.
A total of three fonts appear in the Alfa Romeo racing logo. One for the Alfa Romeo brand, another sans-serif uppercase font for the “F1 Team” component, and a bold block font for “ORLEN.”
Exploring the Alfa Romeo logo
As you can see from the Alfa Romeo logo history above, several changes have occurred to Alfa Romeo’s team’s visual identity over the years.
Like many Formula One groups, the banner and symbolism used on the Alfa Romeo F1 logo have been largely influenced by the sponsors the organization has worked with. This holds to this day.
Today, the Alfa Romeo F1 logo is a relatively balanced symbol, with the ORLEN logo on one side and the Alfa Romeo wordmark on the other.
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As Fabrik’s creative director, Stephen oversees complex branding programmes. He advises our clients on their tone of voice, creates logos and visual identities and crafts names for companies, products and services. Writing for Brand Fabrik Stephen reflects his love for logo design and visual identity.
