Bell Helmets, which provides 12 of the 20 Method 1 drivers, supplies them with three helmets for every race weekend. Over a season, drivers could use as many as 25. Helmets will be reused, however “all the pieces must be as gentle as doable, so if there’s a stone chip, we aren’t going to restore it and add weight — we’ll go and use a brand new helmet, ” stated Stephane Cohen, chief govt of Racing Drive, Bell’s guardian firm.
And, like with overalls, used helmets generally are auctioned for charity. A helmet Max Verstappen of Crimson Bull wore on the Austrian Grand Prix this 12 months was auctioned, together with different gadgets, for 250,000 euros, or about $243,000.
A fundamental carbon-fiber Method 1 helmet can price $5,000, however for Method 1 drivers Bell scans every head for a really perfect match, which means it may attain $15,000.
Bell should additionally take into account visibility; Method 1 races are held throughout the day, at night time and at twilight, whereas climate circumstances range. It means there are totally different visors for various circumstances, which will be affixed and eliminated midrace.
“Think about driving on a partly moist racetrack below a cloudy sky, then the dry line,” the place the observe will look barely totally different because it dries, “begins showing. It is vitally necessary for the racing driver to obviously see with the best doable stage of distinction the place the most effective traces are and the way the observe is evolving,” Cohen stated. “It’s a private selection; some will want lighter, some will want a darker visor.”
Hooked up to the protecting padding contained in the helmet is a digital camera weighing 2.5 grams. It’s at eye stage and shoots video from a driver’s perspective.
“The aim was to present to the viewer the precise view of what the racing driver sees by means of his helmet’s defend,” Cohen stated. For instance, he stated, “some oil comes on the visor, we wish the viewer to see it and to really feel it.”