Concourse Winning F1 Liveries

How would you like your very own amazing looking F1 livery, complete with halo and your favourite driver's helmet and car number? We were lucky enough to be sent this 2023 McLaren F1 decal set, halo and choice of helmet (I chose Australian driver Oscar Piastri) by Raceway RC (link to Facebook page). Full disclosure, they were sent to us for free. However, they look so damn good that we would have paid for them without thinking twice!

We used a Mon-tech F23 body shell, Mon-tech F1 2022 rear wing and Mon-tech F1 2022 front wing, all from Speedy RC for that super fast delivery.  The body came clear and we used Tamiya PS-5 Black spray paint. The wings come in a choice of white or black and we obviously selected black for this build. The F23 body shell is nice and wide at the back and Mon-tech claim this fits nearly any modern F1 car. There was no problem fitting this to my Xray X1 2016, although I needed to trim the front air dam on each side way back where it fits under the lower front A-arms (to stop it interfering with the tyres). The photo below shows the car ready to affix the decals. The halo and helmet come prepainted/decalled.

And now for the best bit. The decals are all precut. It only took a couple of hours to apply them to the car and wings. I expected to have to cut around each decal with scissors, which adds hours to the job. When I found that they were pre-cut you could not keep the smile off my face!!! I was also very happy that many of the decals were so large. For example, the single decal that starts at the front of the cockpit and ends at the nose. It includes all of the many sponsor decals already on it and makes life soooooo easy!

The helmet has a small peg coming out the bottom. Simply ream a small hole for it and secure it with the body pin provided. Easy!

The Halo was fixed in place using clear Shoe Goo glue. I traction rolled several times at the Geetroit GP (race report here) and it stayed firmly in place.

Applying the Decals

I wore one soft glove to keep my finger marks off of the paint/decals but this is optional. Items I consider essential for affixing decals are a window cleaning spray (such as Windex) and a hairdryer (or heat gun).

I spray some Windex onto my finger and smear it onto the body where the decal is going. I then position the decal with tweezers and slide it into the location I want. The self adhesive decal will slide because of the Windex. Once in position I run my gloved finger over the length of the decal, applying pressure to force out any Windex trapped behind the decal. I then run the hairdryer over the decal to set it in place and to conform it to the body (useful if there are any angles or curves under the decal).

If you don't use Windex then you need to get the decal perfectly positioned on the first try because trying to get it off again may damage the decal. Windex is your friend!

The front wing came with a low downforce and high downforce option. I installed the decals first and then screwed on the high downforce option.

Winning Concours d'Elegance at the Geetroit GP

Helmets & Halos

Raceway RC have a good range of helmets along with stands if you want to display them:

Decal Sets

At the time of writing Raceway RC make a large number of decal sets. Here are some examples:

Contact Raceway RC

Visit their Facebook page or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to see if he has what you're looking for. 

If you'd like further ideas on how to paint your F1 shell, you can see our full Painting Guide here.