Strict requirements ensured helmet change for Max Verstappen

In 2019, the FIA ​​introduced a new regulation, which was to ensure that the helmet became safer. This caused a lot of hassle at certain manufacturers because suddenly the helmets had to meet other requirements. The new helmet was tested for a year to ensure that all safety requirements were met.

The old manufacturer of Max Verstappen, Arai, had great difficulty with these new requirements. The demands that were made after the investigation into the Felipe Massa accident in 2009, when a spring came loose from the car of Rubens Barrichello's Brawn. The new requirements ensure that similar accidents are less likely to lead to injury.

The helmets must meet an enormous number of requirements. For example, the helmet must be able to withstand a head-on collision of 250 km / h and therefore the helmet is enormously reinforced on the frontal area. One of the tests was the firing of metal projectiles with 250 km / h on the helmet, so the Massa accident had to be reconstructed.

In retrospect, the current manufacturer of the Aston Martin Red Bull Racing driver, Schubert, thinks that the manufacturers and the FIA ​​have underestimated the entire process in terms of complexity. Schubert CEO, Alberto Dall'Oglio: “It was certainly good to implement the highest possible safety standards. But to calculate only one year of development time was not good," he tells Formel1.de