Leading Formula 1 drivers believe the FIA should scrap the regulation that restricts competitors from altering their helmet designs.
Prior to the 2015 season the FIA introduced a rule stopping drivers from changing their schemes – in order to assist fans with driver identification – though they were permitted one ‘joker’ per year.
However since that rule was brought in another regulation stipulated that the driver’s number and three-letter abbreviation must be visible on the car.
Daniil Kvyat was prohibited from running a special design in Russia, having used a one-off scheme for Toro Rosso’s home event in Italy, while in Mexico Lewis Hamilton took to his Instagram account to ask fans their opinion on the rule.
“I think it’s our helmet and we should be free to do what we want, so I think the rule is major BS,” said Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel.
“We have very little room left to sort of express ourselves and the helmet is probably the only one and if people like it, that’s great, if they don’t like it well it’s not their helmet.
“I think we should be in charge for designing which way and which colour our helmet has.”
Red Bull driver Max Verstappen commented that “I always loved when Seb was at Red Bull and changing his helmet every race, almost, more or less. It was cool because you were just like ‘what is he coming up with now?’
“It’s your crash helmet and you should be able to do what you want and of course in the past, there have been drivers who have always had the same helmet and then they say ‘yeah, but that’s how we can distinguish the drivers’.
“But at the end of the day we have massive numbers on the side, we anyway have a halo on the top so let us do what we want with the helmet now.
“I think anyway it’s very nice to have a different design every year because it’s a bit boring always to keep the same helmet.”
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