GP4: 1994 Lotus 109 Mugen-Honda - Australian GP Version released

1994 Lotus 109 Mugen-Honda (Australian GP) by Fongu

I proudly present to you the 1994 Lotus 109 Mugen-Honda for GP4. The shape had been completed for some years now, and has been stop/start in progress sine then. You can read more about the journey and its features in my blog.

Work in Progress post 1

Work in Progress post 2

The team put all their hopes on this car, that along with Mugen-Honda’s special new engine. The new car, well one of them, only made its debut in Spain, and then the engine, again only one of them, appeared in Italy, only making it to the first corner. The combination looked competitive in Monza, but sadly it was too little too late, as Irvine pitched Herbert into a spin and the resulting melee caused a race restart. The team ran out of money, and Herbert was drafted to Ligier then Benetton. The team saw off the season with pay drivers and went into administration, and the Lotus name left the sport.

To read more about how the team faired that season, you can read more here: 1994 season summary & model review

This is the Australian GP version of the car, with Mika Salo and Alex Zanardi at the wheel. 

I have to thank Oggo for sharing his textures of the early season 107C, some of the logos and race numbers were brought over to this car. 

GP4: Miami GP Helmets final batch

I don't think I've done so many special helmets for one race before, 12 drivers showed up with 14 different helmet designs. But I've managed to complete one per driver now, the final two have now been added to the pack. 

Yuki Tsunoda

Yuki Tsunoda 2022 Miami GP helmet

Alpha Tauri did some promo with a graphiti style painted car, with Jay Bellichi (RemoteROC) leading the design work with some help from the drivers. He also had the chance to put his touch on Tsunoda's helmet with his distinctive triangle and dripping paint design. 

Valterri Bottas

Valterri Bottas 2022 Miami GP helmet

Valterri Bottas showed up in Miami with 3 different designs for each day of the Grand Prix. I've gone for the Sunday race helmet. Unfortunately, that's the helmet with the least pictures for me to base my version off, so this is more of an artist impression than replica of the original. So it's the right leaves for example, not necessarily in the right order for example. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it. 

Thanks as ever to Jvinu for his helmets, and of course these are compatible with ACSPRH helmets in other games. 

Download Link | (mirror)

GP4: Miami GP helmets part 3

Updates

I've done a few more minor tweaks. Firstly I've amended the rubber strip on Vettel's standard helmet, the one with various flags is now a preseason option, the standard helmet now has the Ukrainian flag colours. Secondly, I've amended Ricciardo's visor strip to include the Android logos. 

Mick Schumacher

Mick Schumacher 2022 Bahrain GP helmet

Mick Schumacher ran a special helmet for the first race of the year at Bahrain, following the basic same design that he's running all year, albeit with colour variations, a design by Jens Munser Designs (JMD)

Mick Schumacher 2022 Saudi Arabia GP helmet

Then in Saudi Arabia, another new design, a mix between the Bahrain GP version above and the pre-season helmet. He's worn this design in the races ever since (except in Miami). 

Daniel Ricciardo

Daniel Ricciardo 2022 Miami GP helmet

Onto another JMD created helmet, with some very various unique effects going on, Ricciardo ran an Ace Ventura inspired helmet, with the Hawaiian shirt style hibiscus floral pattern, a macaw (the head and the body of the macaw belong to separate parrots on the real version and this one) and a personalised pet detective badge which is based on Jim Carey's version from the film. On the back we have the logo from the Miami Dolphins team, with Snowflake on a missing poster. It also features the winners ring from 1984 on top of the speckled blue gradient. A very busy helmet, it wasn't easy getting the seams to match, but I'm pretty happy with the final product. 

Sebastian Vettel

Sebastian Vettel 2022 Miami GP helmet

On what is quickly becoming a JMD helmet design special post, we're onto Seb's helmet. Vettel started the weekend wearing a shirt warning that if we don't act now, then Miami will be under water due to climate change. That's the message that continues onto his helmet, claiming that by 2060, if the GP remained at this venue it would be an underwater affair. The snorkel on one side is good fun. 

Zhou Guanyu

Zhou Guanyu 2022 Miami GP helmet

Finally for this update we have this basketball inspired helmet for the Chinese driver. It's a busy colourful helmet, this time by KV Designs and painted by Bell helmets.

As usual, all 7 of these updates/new helmets have been added to the same pack. Thanks as ever to Jvinu for his helmets, and of course these are compatible with ACSPRH helmets in other games. 

Download Link | (mirror)

GP4: Miami GP helmets part 2

I've managed to pick off some of the easier helmets to create from the Miami GP, I'm just over half way through them now, so I'll share an update. I've also gone and updated a few of the standard helmets to bring them up to date with how they've looked in the early races. 

Alex Albon

Alex Albon 2022 Miami GP helmet

The British born Thai driver has truly taken on the Williams number one role and showed impressive form much like what we saw in his Toro Rosso days, delivering some impressive race performances and scoring points that car doesn't deserve to. In Miami, his helmet has turned sky blue and the galaxy picture on the top are now splashing waves. 

Fernando Alonso

Fernando Alonso 2022 Miami GP helmet

Like many other drivers, Fernando's helmet now features a lot of blue and pink, with the gentle waves, a lifeguard beach hut, with the sun setting and the palm trees; it's a beautiful scene. I was a bit concerned initially with the palm trees running over the seam at the front and top of the helmet, but it wasn't the most difficult to line up in the end. 

Lando Norris

Lando Norris 2022 Miami GP helmet

I enjoyed the memes that it should have been Russell and not Norris who should be running a basketball themed helmet because of how much his head bounces up and down in the Merc. Anyway, the helmet looked too good to be true and lead to most people with the need to touch it and see if it was truly bobbly like a real basketball, great job by JMD. Anyway, a great design, the black lines took a bit of fine-tuning to make it look right from every angle. 

Sergio Perez

Sergio Perez 2022 Miami GP helmet

Another blue and pink helmet alert, this time it's the Mexican's helmet that's received the Miami treatment. Replacing the Aztec design are stripes with the pink-purple-sky blue gradient. The pink really pops in the right light, a real eye catcher. 

Mick Schumacher

Mick Schumacher 2022 Miami GP helmet

Mick's actually had slightly different variations of his helmet at most races this year, I may go back and do them, depends how much time I have. This time, his helmet has also undergone the pink-sky blue treatment. The pink has a metallic shine to it, whilst the black continues to show the woodgrain / fingerprint style speckled highlights that he's run since the Bahrain GP in different parts of his helmets this year. He was having such a great race up until the unfortunately collision, would have been nice to celebrate his first points in F1 with this special lid. 

Updated helmets

I've added no war logos to both Ferrari drivers and Latifi's helmet. Initially I wanted to wait to see if it was a one off race thing, but with these drivers having run it for all five Grand Prix so far, I decided to update their helmets. 

I also updated the main red on Ocon's helmet. For some reason, that shade of red doesn't convert well to GP4's .tex format, so I've changed it and amended the alpha layer to be more realistic. 

Thanks as always to Jvinu for the various helmet shapes and templates, recreating the helmets are a pleasure on his base work. 

Download Link | (mirror)

GP4: Max Verstappen's 2022 Miami GP helmet + rFactor2 news

Max Verstappen previewed his helmet quite early on in race week in Miami so I've been able to put his helmet together well before first practice. I know there will be others, but I thought I'd share this with you first, and I'll probably batch the other helmets in the next release. 

Max Verstappen 2022 Miami GP helmet

This Miami themed helmet goes for a dark blue base with sky blue and pink colours. There are the pink palm trees and birds added as well. 

Pierre Gasly 2022 Miami GP helmet

Pink and sky blue are going to be a familiar theme this weekend - I wonder how we'll tell all the helmets apart if this is how all the drivers will turn up to Miami. Pierre released the design video via a NFT. Again thankfully this was quite quick to put together so you can have this helmet too. 

As ever, I could not do this without Jvinu's helmet shapes and templates. 

Download Link | (mirror)

You can preview all of my 2022 helmets here: https://fongugp4.blogspot.com/p/gp4-2022-helmets.html