Keeping it cool: Oliver Bearman on his helmet design

17 June 2022

PREMA Racing's Oliver Bearman is the latest driver on the Formula 3 grid to join us in talking through his helmet design. The Briton says his current helmet takes most of its cues from the one he used in karting, but has undergone a few upgrades since then.

"The story behind my first helmet is a funny one because the first painted helmet I had was actually very similar to this design. I had the same base colours first of all. I recently switched the chrome with the black but the design is the same, and I still have the tribal designs in the black part. The team that I raced for in karting, they used blue, yellow and chrome, so I put the chrome on my helmet and it seemed to work quite nicely. I always liked the design, now this one is similar and I think it works quite well.

"With the current design, quite a lot of the helmet is in black, I just thought it would look cool to be honest. The stuff inside is shiny so it stands out.

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"The first thing people normally notice is that it has my initials on. The ‘O’ is here and on this side it’s the ‘B’. That was the first thing we did. It got designed by a guy called Brandon, he also used to design my old F4 car so I’ve worked quite a lot with him. It’s a continuation of the first helmet I had. The helmet I raced in last year was very similar to this.

"Obviously now I have the FDA (Ferrari Driver Academy) logo. I just try to keep it quite simple because when the cars are going by quite fast, I think if you have big colours that are bright like the yellow then it’s quite recognisable. I want people to recognise this helmet in five years’ time and who it is. That’s the goal so I want to keep the design similar throughout my career.

"I chose red lining but to be honest it doesn’t look great. I thought it would look a bit better but the thing is, I have no red on the helmet so it looks a bit out of place. I think on the next one I’ll go for black or white on the inside. That was the mistake I made with this helmet but if you keep it shut, it’s perfect.

"I don’t really have any superstitious messages, maybe that’s something I could add for the next one.

"I really like the (Sebastian) Vettel one from 2013 with all the lights in. I don’t think that’s allowed anymore but if I race at Macau, I’d have to do something crazy. I’ve seen a few special Macau helmets that people normally bring. Special helmet, special suit and the car is a bit different."