It has, in general, been a reasonably quiet season for special helmets, but the last three Grand Prix has, by my count, seen 18 special helmets raced in three Grand Prix. Both Zhou and Tsunoda ran a special helmet at each of the three races. Not only has there been plenty of helmets to keep me busy, but these are some of the more difficult helmets to recreate this season. Here's a quick summary of what's new.
Italian GP
The three Italian teams (well two based in Italy, and the other sponsored by an Italian car brand) saw all their drivers run new helmets.
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| 2023 Liam Lawson helmet |
Technically, this is not a special, one off just the debut of Liam's proper Alpha Tauri helmet by MDM Designs. The one he raced at the previous race at short notice was his Red Bull testing helmet, but the Alpha Tauri helmet has an all white base rather than a blue one.
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| 2023 Tsunoda Italian GP helmet |
Team-mate Yuki Tsunoda has his regular design, by Adrien Paviot, changed to the colours of the Italian flag in much the same was as he did earlier in the year at Miami. I did have to change the arrangement in leaves a little.
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| 2023 Leclerc Italian GP helmet |
Ferrari ran a special livery for the Italian GP, celebrating their successful return to top tier Le Mans racing. To suit, Charles' helmet, by Adrien Paviot, turned Modena yellow which looks great with the car.
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| 2023 Sainz Italian GP helmet |
Carlos' helmet, by Dave Designs, is predominantly black, using the red and yellow of Ferrari in the style of the Spanish flag. The busy dash style remains at the bottom of the helmet to keep a bit of continuity with his regular helmet design.
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| 2023 Zhou Italian GP helmet |
Alfa Romeo also ran a special livery, this time to promote a new road car release, the Alfa 33 Stradale. Zhou's helmet, by KV Designs, has the colours of the Italian flag worked into his regular design, with various homages to Alfa Romeo, including pictures of race winning Alfa Romeos on each side.
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| 2023 Bottas Italian GP helmet |
Another design by Tiffany Cromwell that is simple and fun and is a cartoon version of an original F1 helmet, with tributes to previously successful Alfa Romeo drivers written on the straps. It was nice to recreate this one with varying leathers and stitching effects.
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| 2023 Verstappen late season helmet |
Verstappen has an amended design which he intends to use for the remainder of the season, except for any special liveries. This design is a modernised version of his first ever helmet when he was still karting, which clearly draws inspiration from his father's F1 helmet. Nice work from KV Designs.
Singapore GP
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| 2023 Tsunoda Singapore GP helmet |
Yuki's helmet for the Singapore GP is designed by Wood Eye designs, and features a cat's face on the front and top. A nice, simple and elegant design.
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| 2023 Norris Singapore GP helmet |
Lando continues his trend of running one helmet with heavy Quadrant branding each year. For this year, Quadrant ran a competition for people to design something for each segment of the Q. The helmet is sparkly all over, and all the sponsors are super reflective. The galaxy like swirls took a bit of time to recreate, especially trying to get everything lined up along the seams, but I'm really please with how this looks, particulaly in-game.
Oscar Piastri also ran a sparkly version of his regular helmet, which is included in the pack, but on the render it doesn't really show up, so I've not included the preview here.
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| 2023 Magnussen Singapore GP helmet |
I really like Kevin's helmets this year, and KV Designs has created this beauty for KMag to run at the Singapore GP. With this being a white helmet with flashes of red, you'd think this is a Japanese version, but then again it would get lost in all the white and red helmets. Anyway, this one really pops in the Haas.
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| 2023 Zhou Singapore GP helmet |
This helmet is inspired by the Chinese tradition of an animal representing their calendar year. This one celebrates the 'Year of the Rabbit', with a kind of Japanese style of graphic with cute Chinese illustrations. The Rabbit ears on the front of the helmet is a nice touch. This helmet took me a while to recreate, with a mix of hand-drawn elements blended with taking parts from photos.
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| 2023 Perez Singapore GP helmet |
Last, but not least for the Singapore GP, is Checo's helmet, by MDM Designs, that celebrates his 250th GP in Formula 1. The helmet incorporates various pictures from his race victories in the last couple of years. Thankfully the photos were quite easy for me to find and was reasonably straight forward to incorporate into his design, which is heavily Mexican flag influenced with a hint of gold. Sadly for Sergio, it was really a race to forget.
Japanese GP
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| 2023 Tsunoda Japanese GP helmet |
For his home race, Tsunoda is wearing another Wood Eye designed helmet. This is quite a plain helmet really, which suits me nicely. I'm grateful for translation tools these days to help me with some of the Japanese text. The 22 on the back was a bit of a pain, it's the most stretched part of the helmet and has three seams to line up. It took a lot of trial and error but I'm happy with the result.
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| 2023 Zhou Japanese GP helmet |
Zhou is the other driver to run his third consecutive special helmet, this one designed by Hiroshi Fukiwara to promote his Fragment Design brand. Thankfully this didn't take long to make and I like the finished design.
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| 2023 Ocon Japanese GP helmet |
Estie Bestie has a Japanese inspired helmet with the Suzuka track map and corners worked into the design. This is a nicely done helmet by KV Designs, and I really enjoyed making this one.
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| 2023 Hamilton Japanese GP helmet |
Hamilton's promotion pictures for his helmet were quite striking, with this helmet designed by Hajime Sorayama, however when it hit the track, it was quite a simple chrome design. Even in the garage, the visor seem to have a covering with the yellow beam from the visor and the chromed silver and gold knobs on the side. This fits Hijime's artwork with a futuristic looking robotic humanoid, and Hamilton has a line of merch featuring Sorayama's designs.
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| 2023 Verstappen Japanese GP |
Max's debut F1 session was at Suzuka, and last year he clinched the Driver's Championship, amid some confusion, also at this track. Like many drivers, his helmet is inspired by the Japanese flag and it's simplicity.
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| 2023 Stroll Japanese GP helmet |
Mark Antar has designed another nice helmet for Stroll to wear for the Japanese GP, with a hand drawn style that accentuates the contours of the Stilo helmet. The rear features a Japanese artistic style with the waves and the rising sun.
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| 2023 Alonso Japanese GP helmet |
And finally, we have Fernando's special helmet, designed by MDM Designs and painted by Jens Munser. Alonso has spoken many times in the past about the way of the Samurai, taking its inspiration into his approach for racing.
Phew, that's been a busy month of creating and releasing GP4 content for you. The pack is rapidly approaching 100 helmets, and with the races to come, I think I'll be busy creating more designs for the remainder of the season.
Huge thanks to Nick for the renders, they look great and it also saves me so much time. Thanks also to Jvinu for his helmet shapes and templates and for allowing me to amend them.
