With Formula 1 dropping a ban on drivers drastically changing their helmet designs ahead of the 2021 Formula 1 campaign, it opened up the door for drivers to experiment a lot with their headwear, and it allowed to see some outstanding designs, while others weren’t certainly amazing to see. Various F1 helmet designs from the 2021 season were beautiful, and we will mention some of those in this article.
Regardless of some weird designs that are even hard to explain, we saw some of the main names in Formula 1, such as Lewis Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel, Kimi Raikkonen, Max Verstappen, or Charles Leclerc wearing some unique helmets that represented a lot for their countries, human rights campaigns or were simply made for a special date or race, as it was in Verstappen’s case at his home races at Belgium and the Netherlands.
Some of the most popular helmets of the season came from Hamilton and Verstappen, who had a fight for the World Drivers’ Championship that was exciting for many, and ugly for others. Hamilton wore special designs for his home race at Silverstone, Great Britain, while he wore a famous design for his stellar win at the 2021 Sao Paulo Grand Prix, with the colors of Ayrton Senna helmet. Moreover, he wore a rainbow helmet for the final races of the year, which took place at countries that are often questioned for human rights situations.
Sebastian Vettel did some things similar to Hamilton in terms of fighting for certain campaigns, while Verstappen wore special designs for his and his team’s home races at Austria, Belgium, and the Netherlands, while also wearing a special helmet for the Brazil round. Lando Norris, Daniel Ricciardo and Charles Leclerc were also wearing some tremendous helmets throughout the year, with Norris wearing a lovely special helmet for the Monaco GP in a throwback weekend for the entire McLaren team.
Leclerc wore some emotional ones, such as a helmet to celebrate his first-ever helmet design, which he decided himself for the French Grand Prix. An F1 helmet is not only for protection and safety, those are only the most important aspects of it, but ever since full-face helmets were introduced in the sport, it has been a way to identify drivers, and racers have worked hard in order to have an F1 racing helmet that represents them.
If we had to choose the best Formula 1 helmet designs from the 2021 World Championship season, we couldn’t, as Hamilton’s Brazil helmet was quite awesome, while his inclusivity design was also fantastic. Moreover, Norris’ throwback helmet for the Monaco GP was stunning, as was the one from Ferrari driver Charles Lecler, who wore a lovely helmet for his home GP in the principality.
Leclerc’s helmet for the Monaco race was inspired by the only Monegasque driver to win at his home race: Louis Chiron, who did it in the 1931 edition, before also finishing on the podium in the first World Championship edition of the rave, in 1950, while Juan Manuel Fangio took his maiden win in the World Championship.
Definitely, it is hard to choose from such great-quality helmet designs.