THE STORY BEHIND MOTUL’S NEW 300V RACING LIVERY

Graphic designer. Journalist. Commentator. Race driver. There seems to be no end to the talents of Frenchman Adrien Paviot. Adrien recently designed the new Motul 300V livery that will feature on the race cars of our technical partners in a variety of different motorsports. As the designer of the livery, Adrien gets the special honour of being the first person to feature it on his race car, a Ginetta that he races for team Speed Car in the French GT Championship. Ahead of the fifth round at Ledenon, we catch up with him to find out more about the design.

I am the designer of the new Motul 300V livery. This is the livery I have on the Ginetta and we will also have it on the Dakar cars. It’s the new generic livery for Motul in racing. The Ginetta was the very first car to wear it. We made it in July, and this is the first time I will race the car with the new 300V logo. For more than 10 years now I have created a lot of designs for Motul. My relationship with Motul is a working one. We have created a full brand livery that can fit all kinds of cars, and this is the one I have on my Ginetta.

It’s really different, and that’s why it wasn’t an easy livery to create. For example, the bonnet of the Ginetta is big, so I have a lot of space to cover, but on the Dakar car, it has big air intakes and a smaller front. So we have to delete some parts of the design. I had to find some very important elements such as the big red stripes and the colours of Motul – red, white and a bit of black. And then to have some shapes that can fit every car, that can be added to: for example you can have four stripes if it’s a really big car. I had a good motivation because I knew I would be the first one to race this livery. I wanted to have a nice race car.

We’ve been talking about a graphic design for a long time. If you’re a technical partner with Motul, every car will have the livery with the logo in the same place. I used to work for Red Bull and this is something it is really strong in. The bulls on the side and the high visibility of the logo on the bonnet and the roof, for instance. I wanted to bring this identity to Motul’s livery.

I used to do only three races a year because I’m a graphic designer and have a lot of work, so I don’t have time to do a full championship. I’m not a race driver, I do it for fun. I used to race in the Ultimate Cup Series. This year, I’m racing in the French GT Championship because there are a few calendar clashes with the Ultimate Cup Series, and we have decided to prioritise the GT races. We already had a race with the livery on the Ginetta at Paul Ricard in July, and we unveiled the livery at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. But this is the first year we’re racing with the new livery. People really like it.

This one took a long time. I put a lot of pressure on myself because I wanted to have a nice car for me [laughs] but also because we’ve been talking about doing this with Motul for a long time. And it wasn’t easy creating a livery that fits all types of racing car, but the results are worth it.