Renault gives the 2016 Formula 1 grid some welcome colour

This is Renault’s new F1 car for 2016, the RS16. You might have seen it earlier in the year, in a plain black livery for its pre-season testing boot camp.

That made it look quite boring, particularly for a machine that develops about 800bhp, costs many millions of pounds and can theoretically drive on the ceiling.

Praise be, then, that Renault’s competition clothes for the RS16 are far more jazzy. This yellow livery is the paint job the car will be sporting this season,as Renault begins its five-year trek back to, in its own CEO Carlos Ghosn’s words, winning the world title once again.

It looks pretty smart in our view, especially as McLaren, Force India and Red Bull have all stuck with rather dark, monochrome and matt colour schemes for 2016. Renault says the bodywork feature metallic elements that’ll be revealed during floodlit night races in Singapore and Abu Dhabi, too.

Now, Renault could have left things there. Instead, though, it has fallen through the trapdoor marked ‘F1 drivers try acting’, and produced a bizarre video involving Kevin Magnussen and Jolyon Palmer taking Australian pro surfer Jean Colley for a wave-ride in their newly gaudy racer on a giant surfboard.

Hopefully ‘all at sea’ or ‘damp squib’ aren’t about to be metaphors for the season ahead…