Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc have revealed his special helmet for the 2023 Italian Grand Prix, as part of a new-look Ferrari aesthetic for the weekend that also includes a one-off livery and overalls for Monza.
The 2022 edition saw nine drivers sport special headwear for the race, including Sainz whose all-yellow design matched Ferrari‘s throwback race suits as Leclerc finished second behind Max Verstappen.
This year Ferrari have left some yellow on the car, their 2023 design channels the Ferrari 499P that won the 24 Hours of Le Mans earlier in the season.
In the hands of James Calado, Antonio Giovinazzi and Alessandro Pier Guidi, Ferrari ended Toyota‘s five-year win streak at the race to joyous celebrations at Maranello.
Leclerc announced his helmet less than 24 hours after Sainz, while the Alfa Romeo drivers have also jazzed things up to go with their stunning Monza special livery.
Alex Albon was planning to put a picture of his appendix on his helmet, 12 months on from missing the 2022 Italian GP to have it removed, but decided against that in the end.
Aside from that, Liam Lawson used his Red Bull showrunning helmet at the 2023 Dutch GP but revealed his official design going forward after he was confirmed as AlphaTauri‘s full-time driver until Daniel Ricciardo‘s recovered.
Finally, Lawson‘s teammate has a special design and Felipe Drugovich will show off his lid in FP1.
Carlos Sainz
Sainz has stuck with his standard red-black-yellow colour scheme, which fits well with Ferrari‘s look over the weekend.
The large number in the circle is an absolute staple of throwback helmets these days, Fernando Alonso did the same with his classic look at the British GP.
But ironically, the helmet invokes shades of James Hunt, famous for his successful title fight against a Ferrari driver.
With the black-dominated design and Sainz‘s name written on the side of the lid, it’s definitely similar to the 1976 world champion’s helmet, that he used to beat Ferrari‘s Niki Lauda in one of the best title fights in Formula 1 history.
Charles Leclerc
Leclerc‘s helmet is very similar to his Italian GP design 12 months ago. The 2023 design is again yellow-dominated, with black stripes spearing off from the edges of the visor to the back of the helmet.
He’s also reused the Italian flag stripe over the top of the helmet, but added ‘We Dream’ into the red.
The very good news is it’s noticeably different enough from Sainz‘s so recongising them in the car from a distance shouldn’t be too problematic, after their 2022 designs were much more similar.
Zhou Guanyu
If you haven’t seen Alfa Romeo‘s Italian GP livery, check it out now. It’s absolutely stunning, if there’s not a petition out there for Alfa to keep it for the rest of the season then there needs to be soon.
Zhou‘s helmet fits right into that, basically a recoloured version of his usual design pattern but it just looks so so good in red and green.
His standard helmet colour scheme isn’t bad, but it just seems to come alive when he recolours it – Zhou ran a throwback helmet at Silverstone in green, orange and blue which looked class too.
Valtteri Bottas
Bottas has gone in a very different direction for his Alfa Romeo tribute helmet. The team won the first two ever F1 world championships in 1950 and 1951 with Giuseppe Farina and Juan Manuel Fangio.
He’s channeled the cloth caps and racing goggles that counted as head protection in those early days, though thankfully it’s still wrapped Bottas‘ much more modern Stilo helmet.
“I’m paying tribute to the very beginning of the journey in F1 for Alfa Romeo, going back to 1950s,” Bottas said when announcing his helmet on social media. “So going very retro with the helmet they were racing at that time.”
Yuki Tsunoda
Similarly to Zhou, Tsunoda‘s recoloured his usual helmet design in red and green for his Faenza-based team’s home weekend.
Tsunoda has one of the best designs on the grid to begin with, featuring autumnal coloured leaves splattered across the helmet, but this might just look even better.
Liam Lawson
As previously mentioned, Lawson used his showrunning helmet at the Dutch GP standing in for Daniel Ricciardo but has now unveiled his full-time design as the first New Zealand F1 driver since Toro Rosso‘s Brendon Hartley in 2017.
Like Hartley, who had a map of his country on the top of the helmet and the four stars of the flag feature on the side of the helmet, there’s a strong Kiwi theme.
For Lawson that’s the silver fern – present on plenty of New Zealand sports team logos from rugby to cricket, football and netball – in pride of place topping the design and those four stars ringing it.
Felipe Drugovich
Drugovich appears in FP1 for Aston Martin in place of Lance Stroll. He’s got pretty much the same design that he rocked in preseason testing at Bahrain but has done away with the lime green on top.
