By Huw Alban
January 12 2006

BigPip and I headed straight to the Formula One display at Autosport today and were greeted by our first real view of the Midland F1 livery as used at the pre-Christmas Jerez test I have to be honest that I was a little disappointed with the Jerez test livery. The red and the white worked well, but the darker paintwork just seemed too dark (or was it just the pictures).

Having seen this livery for real (albeit underneath the horrible sodium lights at the NEC) I am completely converted. The livery is stunning, and was attracting a lot of attention from other visitors to the show.

The main Formula One display featured 9 cars laid out in a mock Monaco race display, with the only missing car being that of the BMW works team (formerly Sauber of course). With the exception of Midland all teams featured their 2005 liveries which was a bit of a shame since we're so used to seeing them like that on the TV.

Other F1 displays were being carried by individual car manufacturers like Renault and Toyota, and without even trying we stumbled into Vitantonio Liuzzi and Paul Stoddart both giving interviews.

We're carrying three galleries of images from the Formula One display - check out the links below to view them.

We are hoping to go back to the show on Saturday to catch up with what Johnny Herbert has to say, so look out for further show updates over the weekend.