Ahead of the 2025 Imola Grand Prix, we sat down with the BWT Alpine Formula One Team’s design team about the inspiration behind their special-edition race poster.

What were the initial steps you took when designing the Imola GP Race Poster?

With this being the 20th anniversary of the one of the most memorable wins for the team - and certainly one I remember vividly, glued to the TV as a 10-year-old kid - the opportunity to create a poster for the race that combined our past with our present was too good to miss. I set out to focus on the cars themselves for this one, rather than pursuing a high-concept or abstract background. I wanted the machines - especially the R25 - to be the centrepiece of the visual.

For the composition, I chose a wide-angle shot with the current car in the foreground and the Renault in the background. This setup created a stronger sense of speed and allowed the image to be filled with colour through a tighter crop, avoiding the emptiness that might have resulted from showing both cars more distantly. To give it a more Imola-specific and posterised feel, I stylized the track’s asphalt in red and rendered the railings in a metallic green, rather than the usual blacks and greys. This way, the scene subtly reflects the colours of the Italian flag, with the white racing line dividing the tones.

An in-depth explanation of how you designed this specific graphic

As always, we used Cinema 4D (C4D) to build and develop the poster. However, for this project, we made an early decision to switch from Redshift - a faster render engine ideal for animations - to Corona, a much slower but hyper-realistic renderer. This is the same engine we use for our launch images. After experimenting with red and green tones in Redshift, I realised I wanted the cars to be the true heroes of the design.

That led me to switch engines and aim for realism. I applied more detail to the trees, grass, asphalt, and car materials. The trade-off was longer render times: about 2 hours for the still image and 23 hours for the animated version used in our garage and motorhome.

A key element of this poster was conveying a sense of speed and motion - capturing the feeling of these cars racing side by side. I spent time learning how to create a motion blur effect for the background (trees and track), and added a slight offset to the cars to stretch their velocity. Once I was happy with the result, I brought the render into Photoshop and used Camera Raw for colour grading.

This is a poster I’ve wanted to create since I started here at Enstone, so I’m incredibly proud to have finally brought it to life. I hope it serves as a fitting tribute to one of the most iconic cars and races in the team’s history.