Hamilton’s new helmet
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I’m afraid I have to agree with Prisoner Monkeys; also, that Monster advertising would look hideous on any helmet design.
I don’t have any problem with the Monster branding. In fact, it’s probably the one part of the helmet that actually works, simply because it is doing something. Everything else is just a cacophony of colour thrown together in bright clumps and given no space to breathe. The end result is a confusing mess where no one element comes ot the fore. The yellow and the green bleed into one another, and the darker colours do nothing to compliment the lighter ones. It’s like Renault’s 2007-2009 liveries, where everything is just dumped on the car without any degree of finesse – probably by someone who tihnks finesse is a French pastry.
By contrast, here is Valtteri Bottas’ helmet, which looks like a throwback to the simple helmets of yore, albeit one that is coloured too closely to the FW34/35 livery:
https://i.imgur.com/BEoSp7x.jpg
That is a good helmet.
It’s VERY similar (at least in side profile) to Alain Prost’s helmet.
http://www.f1fanstore.com/files/1894786/uploaded/HAP1993_F1_Helmet_Alain_Prost_1993_d.jpg
Only at first glance. I’d say it’s sort of a cross between Prost’s helmet and Massa’s. Here it is from the rear:
https://i.imgur.com/GSVbL7f.jpg
I’m trying to find an angle from the top down, because I suspect Bottas has got a bit of artwork on the crown, but I’m having no luck.
The only problem I have with both Lewis and Nico is both are Yellow. Which is fine, you know, its their helmets. But its going to be requiring a bit more attention when both are on the race track together. Helmets are one of the few indicators that we have to see who is who. 2 Yellow helmets in a silver car wont help that too much.
Lewis’s helmet looks nice however, still pretty much what it was before just with a tweek to it. Makes sense, a change of teams so he changes the helemt.
Personally I don’t think it’ll be a huge issue that both are yellow. Rosberg’s is more fluorescent than Hamilton’s.
I hope Mercedes has something a little more substantial than colouring the t-cams. I remember having trouble telling the difference between MSC and Rosberg at Spa, since Schumi was using that special gold helmet.
Bottas’ helmet looks nice and clean in design. It also looks like there is some extra artwork on the top, as it looks to me like there are some orange patterns at the top of the picture @prisoner-monkeys posted.
I do think it’s going to be a problem. People keep saying that they find them so easy to differentiate, but I can imagine seeing them in the middle of a busy first corner scuffle without perfect camera angles and having not a clue who is who.
I do agree that the colors will confuse viewers – if anyone watched recently the Australian Final with Djokovic and Murray, they were both wearing the same color clothes (black versus navy black) and it was very hard to tell them apart and that was knowing which side of the court each player was on and they don’t really have the same hairstyle.
The only way I could tell Schumi and Rosberg apart was by checking if the helmet was red or yellow and sometimes it was hard to even see that depending on the car’s angle.
One of them has to change the color of his helmet and since Hamilton joined Mercedes, I really think it should be him.
BTW, is the visor on the helmet a different color? Is that how he might be trying to set his helmet apart from Nico’s?
The way I’m telling them apart at the moment (from the front anyway) is on Lewis’ helmet the Mercedes logo is on a yellow background while on Nico’s it’s on a grey background.
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