Currently working on a special helmets analysis and the difference in how drivers present their helmets is hilarious and annoying.
Like Max Verstappen’s Vegas helmet announcement heavily focused on Vegas being the Neon Capital of the World. Which tbh as someone who’s lived in the US her whole life, I don’t think I’ve heard it before this helmet reveal. Entertainment capital yes, but never neon. Then there’s Charles Leclerc forgetting his 100th race with Ferrari and designing a helmet based on a football field… and of course later on saying he got inspiration from an Italian singer as well and how the green is for the green meadows where hope is born. All very poetic and definitely sounds like something I would’ve said on a discussion board for my classes on political theory or art history when I had no idea what was going on.
There’s also the Haas drivers in Abu Dhabi. As far as I can tell, at least for Kevin Magnussen, there was no post, article, anything to tell us why his helmet had a chrome/silver design to some parts. Just randomly saw him on the screen and thought well that looks different, then I had to go through a hundred different pictures to confirm that it was indeed not his normal helmet. With Nico Hulkenberg, JMD on Twitter confirmed that he had chrome/silver parts, but so far I have no explanation.
Meanwhile George had a whole ad video to announce that his Vegas helmet would have glitter/sparkle. And Max regularly makes short 1 minute videos explaining that he does indeed have a special helmet and what’s changed on it and sometimes he says why.
All of this is to say I would like some consistency in special helmet announcements. Like I really want to hear why they chose the design, why that GP deserved a special helmet, etc. I will sit through those videos or read essays on that.
Anyways, there’s 115 instances in which the drivers did not use their “normal” helmets (at least from what I have been able to determine after looking through pictures, articles, and social media). So far I’ve found explanations and clear pictures of 32 - including the GPs in which a special helmet design was repeated.
My original plan of having this done before new years is probably a long shot considering I still have 83 helmets to research and then do meaningful analysis.
But if anyone knows why the haas drivers had chrome/silver detailing for Abu Dhabi, why Daniel was wearing the Vegas helmet for Abu Dhabi, or why Esteban changed the white lines to black lines for his normal helmet that would be super helpful.