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Ever wondered about the origins behind a driver’s helmet? How did they decide the colours, design, theme? We caught up with Venturi’s Nick Heidfeld to find out the thinking behind his…
“I’ve changed my design quite a bit over the years but now I’ve settled on this design which is mainly black with red chrome with hints of the German flag.
“One of my most favourite and special helmets is the one that was sponsored by my mechanics when I was in Formula 3. It was all white and I didn’t have the money to pay for a good paint job so the mechanics came together and paid for the painting for me. That was a very good memory and I keep it safe at home.
“After that I had quite consistent designs through my Formula 3000 days, then after that I got a bit fed up with the same colours so I changed it a few times, adding more blues and blacks and even having a green helmet.
“I like to be inspired by things around me. The chrome, for instance, came from some football helmets I saw in the States that were black with red chrome and as my helmet was black and white anyway I asked my designer if he could tweak it.
“Sometimes I’ve allowed the fans to send in their ideas to create my helmet for me. During my time in F1, twice we ran a competition to design my helmet. I used to have a special tool on my website to let you design yours and I had many, many thousands of people designing one and I choose the best – which I actually used on my home Grand Prix. We produced two, I kept one and the other was a prize for the guy who designed it.”