Most people hated the look of the Brabham BT44, but I always liked it.
It was my first Scalextric car. 
By default, the current Ferrari is alway the best F1 car ever!
On the subject of F1 cars:
What is it about the Brawn car that causes it to lose pace in cooler temperatures? Is it Button’s driving style? I’ve noticed he’s lighter on tires, which would translate to the problem he had getting heat into the rubber. Barichello seemed to be off a bit, but no where near as bad as Button.
Pork Rind, I think you’re right that that era had the best looking cars, followed by the early 90’s. Remember the wonderfully intricate curves of the headers on the Lutuses before they flared back?
And Elvis, I too thought immediately of the John Player Special, but upon further review, I must confess I think it’s one of the handsomest paint jobs ever, but that era created the most ungainly front ends ever. Though when pressed I will still mourn that we’ve lost British Racing Green, French Racing Blue, Japanese Racing White, and German Racing Silver. At least Ferrari is able to keep Italian Red on the grid.
Lastly, for the high nose/low wing cars, outside of the lessons of aerodynamics, the most interesting thing to me is that the driver’s feet must be above (higher than) their hips, a very unusual driving position. It must be relatively easy to get used to, I suppose.
The now-defunct Jaguar F1 team painted its cars British Racing Green, which I thought was nice. Also, Aston Martin’s endurance racers are usually painted BRG.
I wondered about. Is the driver somewhat reclining, you think?
ReallyNotAllThatBright, I’d repressed the Rahal managed Jag teams. Thanks for the not (if you were a fan) so pleasant memories!
mangeorge, somewhat reclined? Look at the silhouettes that the OP provided. The drivers eyes are only a couple of inches above the cowling, so their hips are low and their knees and feet must be higher.
Now that’s how it looks. There could some sort of F1 magic I don’t understand, of course. Max, Bernie, can you help me out? You haven’t been busy recently.
F1 drivers are generally quite small. Damon Hill was almost a giant at 5’11", and he wore UK size 12 shoes which caused the Williams team no end of problems.
It seems to be part tyre temp and part braking performance. After Silverstone Button predicted they’d be much better in the next 2 races since there is more heavy braking (he said “we’re better under braking”) and the temperatures should be higher. Silverstone is a very fast track where they manage with just engine braking for most of the lap.
Here’s a silhouette of an generic F1 car and how the driver sits within it…the driver’s feet are higher than his butt.
One of Adrian Newey’s first notable cars, the March Leyton House 881, was notably uncomfortable for the drivers. Here’s Jackie Stewart frank opinion after driving it. I saw an interview with Newey in which he put the fault on Ivan Capelli who didn’t complain while they were designing the cockpit layout.
Thanks for a couple of very interesting links.
Thanks, that makes sense. I hadn’t thought about the friction generated during braking. I was looking at the early weather forecast for Germany… cool temperature and cloud cover. But there are much tighter corners on the Nürburgring, so perhaps that will compensate.