Karting colour schemes and inspiration: Taito Kato on his 2026 helmet design

ART Grand Prix’s Taito Kato talks us through his 2026 helmet design, how it came to be and all the design choices behind the lid.

The Japanese driver takes inspiration from the Chinese Zodiac, and sticks to his roots from when he raced in karts.

“I think it's pretty cool. I think compared to last year, it's not so different. I just changed the colour to pink. Last year it was orange. Basically, the main colour is now yellow, which is my original colour, I would say since 2022, that was my last year of karting.

“I still continue to use the yellow colour. Yellow is the colour of passion. It's really nice to see. It's easy to see on the grid as well. So that's why I decided to continue to use it like this.

“On the top, it's my character. It's a white boar. It's from Chinese zodiac. I was born in 2007, so that's why I chose a character in the white boar. The white boar is really quick and really fast.

READ MORE

• Honesty and learning from each other: Getting to know the Van Amersfoort Racing teammates
• Brando Badoer: ‘Top 3 the target’ as he analyses F3 season so far
• Team tribute and a driver’s best friend: Théophile Nael on his 2026 helmet design

“With the colours, I wanted to try something new. The design is from the Japanese letter. The first main design is here. This is kanji. And then it's my name, Taito. My kanji is like this. So that's why I decided to put my name here.

“I like my design. The back is nothing special, to be honest. It's my designer thinking about it. My design really focuses on the sides and a bit of the front.

“Difficult to say what I’d add, to be honest. I like this design so much, so I shouldn't change so much. I think I’d just change the colour or something. I want to keep the design and I want to keep the yellow as well. So just change maybe the pink part. But I'm still thinking about maybe going to purple. I think it's going to be cool.”