When you think of early-mid 1990s helmets, you're probably thinking of simple designs, designed to be seen on a small screen, immediately identifiable with bold colours and basic shapes. They were perfect material for little boy drawings, memorable, distinct, simple, iconic.
For JJ Lehto, his main helmet design followed this trend for 1991 and 1992, with a white and blue base with red lines.
For 1993, Uffedesigns (who is still doing the odd helmet for modern day F1 drivers), added a bold five leaf design to the top of his helmet, graduating from green to yellow to orange. This varied in colour at different rounds of the early season, and is troublesome for anyone trying to recreate it in sim racing, because it invariably goes over seams and it's incredibly hard not only to get the design lined up, but getting the gradient colours to match over the seams is very, very difficult.
By the British GP, the design on the top went to a simple chequered pattern, that ran through to the back of the helmet and this design would carry through to his 1994 season at Benetton and Sauber.
However, Lehto ran a special helmet design for the 1993 Monaco GP, featuring a sunrise strip at the front and an even more elaborate five leaf design across the top, that also penetrating the side and rear design. The base is a repeated blue square pattern, with some white strips added along the bottom. It was so unusual for that era to have such a bold design. A tweaked version of this helmet was used at the Le Mans 24 hour race, I think in 1996 in a Gulf liveried McLaren F1.
I've long been a fan of Öggo's 1993 helmet set, the exquisite helmet shapes, the detail and personalisation of each drivers helmet on a track specific level, was an inspiration to the update I did for 1994. It was an honour to be asked to be involved by recreating Lehto's 1993 Monaco GP helmet. Öggo had done a great job in creating the standard leaf top used at the early races. It took a lot of persuading, and as is usual when we make requests of one another, that it can take months, if not years, or even a decade in the case of the 1993 Tyrrell, that we fulfil each other's requests. He had made a little bit of a start, and in two batches, one in the autumn of 2024 and another couple of sessions early in 2025, I'm proud to say it was finally complete.
I started by doing the blue base, which is a repeated pattern. It wasn't easy getting the level of blue to show through without it being over exposed. The red lines actually have a slight orange outline to make it stand out more. The leaves were hand drawn as best I can with a pen tool and simple trial and error to make it line up across two textures. Then it was getting the gradients in, adding a slight white glow to the inner edges to give it that layered spray-paint effect. In the end, I really enjoyed the challenge and how it turned out, and it really pops in the all black Sauber Mercedes car.
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| 1993 JJ Lehto Monaco GP helmet by fongu & Öggo |
I want to thank Quickslick for some help with photos, and to Öggo for his logos, this beautiful render and hastling me, I mean inspiring me to do this project, not to mention the great Arai helmet shape and template upon which its painted on.
You can download the recently released 1993 helmet pack that now includes Arai, Shoei and three types of Bell helmet, which includes my sole contribution of this beautiful helmet. It's really worth your time to have a look at this beautiful set, recreated with love and care and attention of detail synonymous with Öggo's work.
I know there is a 1993 mod update being worked on, of which I have a little involvement with, which will include these new helmets as well as some other nice updates. I hope it won't be too long before the work on that is done and shared with this fantastic community.
