Ayrton Senna would make

Good bye, see you later

of Lewis Hamilton.

neon green paint was probably quite expensive back then

I have had the same conversations with drivers about helmet designs and it usually goes along the lines of

"I need to stand out" "OK use a bright colour like yellow" "I wanna be different" "well add your own bits"

Its really not out of the question that with the limited skills Anthony had with helmet painting that two bands of colour would have been chosen. Blue and Green are readily available cheap paints as well.

It's perfectly plausible and reasonable to believe this was the thought process.

Do any of you honestly think Senna would give a toss about Hamilton? I think Senna's focus would be directed to Bruno. Senna would not have been impressed with a driver who threw away a championship in his rookie year and almost managed to do it in his second year. Yah, Senna would have been really impressed with Hamilton.

Whats with the other drivers dads? To dumb to see the (yellow) light, or not caring for their boys, or what? By now I'm convinced that there must be something wrong with those dads chosing anything but yellow as their boys helmet color...

He'd totally hate Hamilton, he'd smash the TV too at Brazil 2008

Yawn......

I am sure I saw Hamilton say that his helmet colour is inspired by Senna.

There is nothing wrong with it. Its a little different but you can see the inspiration. So what?!



OT: Its a shame Bruno Senna doesn't wear the original Senna design. Also Nico Prost doesn't wear the Alain Prost design and I think thats a crime!

I wear a Graham Hill tribute helmet when I ride my Bike and I'll commision a Senna and Bell rep sometime soon. Then again I am not competing internationally.

When my sons starts karting, we will have our own design.

That has to be the single most stupid thing I've read on this board since I joined.
I appreciate he isn't everybody's cup of tea and some of his antics are dubious but to say he hasn't made an impact in F1 is bollocks.

Im not sure what senna would have thought of hamilton but I do know what he would have done if he had been his team mate at hungary 2007. A back hander.

Alonso is closer to Senna anyway, hes the passionate fiery latino type. Hamiltons just a show pony.

Totally agree. In the modern era only MS and JV have made such a big impact in F1 in their first 2.5 years.

I trust you two have not been to a GP since Hamilton had started driving. The buzz around him is immense.

Does Mattias Lauda where his old man's colours?

True, and very fitting in more than one way.

In 10 years time there will only be one of those two names linked to Hamilton. But which one?

I imagine if Senna was in Kimi's place, or in Alonso's place, he would have punched Lewis in the face.

He would laugh at the corporate driver who desperately wants to be as cool as Kimi and as fast as Senna.

That would be Piquet's reaction.

I think Senna would just love Hamiltons honesty and integrity. Maybe he would even adopt him.

I don't think Senna would give a sh1t about being cool or the "coolest" driver in F1.

Yeah, I think he would be very impressed with MS too.

He would?

Try hard to remember, they knew each other.

You are a funny guy,but be careful you might get a wrath of the loonies soon

Well, I'm already familiar with the wrath of the loonies here.

was　impressed，　would　be　even　more　impressed　with　his　later　antics。

I think that is very amusing.

All of the posters he had on his walls were also black and white? Come on guys, he was emulating his idol and there is nothing wrong with that. Most of us did it as kids, running the number 23 for Michael Jordan or whatever it might have been.

Honestly, like Schumacher?

I'm not quite sure why you (or Lewis) would be so keen to pretend that his design was evolved on it's own....

Now - if it was so important that Dad be able to see Lew from the pits, is yellow the ONLY colour they could us to stand out? I mean - what about hot pink, eh? There are loads of colours that could have stood out - even plain black/dark blue (look how well that worked for Damon Hill). Next - he attributes his choice of red blue and green to the fact that his dad asked him what other colours he wanted on his helmet.... - and that's all. And we, the great unwashed, are supposed to believe that he picked green and blue out of thin air? What a coincidence, that a driver who idolized Senna should "just happen" to end up with a Helmet that is almost completely identical to Senna's through a completely different and original set of parameters that had NOTHING to do with Senna's already extant helmet design!!!

doubt Senna would have been that interested in the originality of LH's helmet design as some posters here....

If you watch some of the other videos the hot pink was already taken by Lewis's rival Chris Rogers, and some other kid was using Damon Hill's design. This leaves only a couple of colours left that truly stand out. Yellow is, from my own experience, the best colour to spot from a distance. It really isn't that major to believe that's how he chose the lid design.

Some people try to make summit out of nothing without having any experience of the situation lewis's dad found himself in. Mind you it is a forum and common sense doesn't really come in spades

Common Sense? refer to Ockhams razor - it explains my issues with this succinctly.

If you wish to believe Lewis, (and the posters who support his assertions) fine. But if you do, I don't think that your decision, after having looked at the helmets together, will be one that is based upon "common sense".

Does it matter? Of course not. Who cares if he lifted the design from Senna? I don't. I just think it's hugely amusing that hamilton sees the need to invent some sort of revisionist history to explain the startling similarities between his ahd his heros' helmet.

I find it amusing that someone who clearly isn't a karting dad and has never watched a pack of 30 karts off into the distance thinks they know more than someone that does

...and I find it amusing that you keep missing the point. Mauricio Gugelmin had a helmet with loads of yellow on it. So did Michele Alboreto - so did Roberto Moreno, so did Mark Blundell... None of the aforementioned looked like "copies" of Senna's helmet. Hamiltons does - or do you disagree? Do you REALLY think it's just an enormous co-incidence that LH's helmet has a green stripe above and a blue one below.... JUST LIKE LH's hero, Ayrton Senna? And do you really think that those oh-so-familiar green and blue stripes"helped" Anthony H see his son? Or do you think that the stipes are there as a tribute to Lewis' favourite driver... ? Ockhams razor again.

I still don't get it - I don't see it as anything that LH should have to explain - if he wants to copy Senna's (or anyone elses's) helmet - more power to him. I remember that Perry McCarthy used Gilles Villeneuve's helmet colours and design as an inspiration for his - and I thought it was going to be great to see those colours on the grid again (never happened, of course).

I do find it risible, however, to hear Hamilton "explain" how his helmet design "evolved" as though the resemblance to Senna's helmet is purely incidental.

His dad painted it, and strips like that were very very common at the time. It's easy to imagine they went what other colours go well with yellow - blue and green. As his DAD was painting it, strips are incredibly easy to mask and paint for a noob. People are making something out of nothin'

No idea why people here have their hands full with talking the obvious away - that Hamilton's helmet design was inspired by Senna's.

Why are you trying to negate that? There is nothing wrong with him paying tribute to his idol.

OK Tiny Jim - This'll be my last missive on this subject.



Hmmm. I thought Daddy wanted Lew to stick out? Now it turns out he painted stripes cos everyone else was??? Wouldn't that make Lew look more like everyone else, thus defeating the supposed purpose of the yellow helmet??? Also - Please - look at the F1 grid of 1993 (doubtless Lew and daddy did) - The "stripes" which you think were so common (these being layered stripes on a solid ground as per Senna's helmet)? Very few drivers had them as per Senna. Please - name those drivers on the 1993 grid who had stripes as Senna did. Im waiting. Out of some 35 drivers, who had those stripes??? Mmmmm? Yeah. That's what I thought.



Well, you're no colourist, are you? Fortunately, for this argument, my career forces me to be. If you're looking for obvious colour relationships for yellow, you'd pick blue and red - these are triadic relationships based on the colour wheel, and also the three BASIC colours. Green is in fact a fairly complex addition (diadic) and if you're going to pick green, why not orange - Hey - it sticks out (and after all, that's what Daddy wanted) and it is diadic also. Senna wouldn't have been thinking of this - his helmet is based on the Brazilian flag. The obvious colour match for yellow is red (Shell, if you're looking at logos, Spain for flags) or blue (Swedish flag). double diadic/triadic is a far from obvious combination - other examples of this combo set would be Green, violet, orange and yellow (wonder why Lew didn't do that? ;-) ) Blue-violet, yellow-green, red-orange and red-violet. Hmm. The only drivers I can think of off the top of my head who had yellow green and blue in their helmets were - unsurprisingly, Brazilian. Even if you want to argue the Grenadian angle, you run into problems - there's no blue in that flag.



So, if it was all about "ease" why not just leave the helmet plain yellow? Then Daddy (with his sad inability to perceive any other colour than yellow in a helmet....) could paint it easily and see it clearly. Why the stripes??? More importantly, why blue and green stripes in the same order as on Senna's helmet??? If Da was such a pathetic painter why the "ribbons"? (not stripes - no Lewis has RIBBONS!) Ease of painting was not an issue - watch the video. The paint job has a yellow helmet, red/green and blue stripes with a white "flashing" (outline) and the"ribbons" shadowed where they overlapped - simple my ass.



You're right there - Lewis is - he aped Senna's helmet (no shame in that) but now is trying to sell us on the idea that he somehow evolved this helmet "design" through some sort of tortured series of events and co-incidences that allow him to pretend that his "design" is his own. Pathetic. It would be much more refreshing to hear him say "I thought Senna was great and wanted no other colours or designs on my helmet than his" - what's the problem with that????? None. But no - Now Lewie is a WDC and has to be his own man, so now he'll show you the entire tortured and convoluted manner in which HE evolved this design on his own. Ayrton who?

What is the big deal where design came from? Its obvious even for monkey,that Lewis emulated Ayrton`s design and are people debating this fact just because it would make Lewis seem less unique?

Exactly! But don't tell Lewis' fans this - Senna isn't good enough for them (or Maestro tres-importande-el-grande Lewis) anymore - Lewis has already eclipsed Ayrton.... ;-)

The big deal is that if you watch the video referenced in this thread, Lewis suggests that the design is all his own (no mention of Senna) and thus all of Lewis' fans apparently have forgotten what Senna's helmet looked like.

The funny thing is that there IS no big deal - except that now Lewis wants to be the one who designed what-his-names (Senna's) helmet. Watch the vid - he came up with it on his own with Daddy. Again - Pathetic.

Ayrton Senna wouldn't have wasted his time looking for consistency in what someone said about a conspicuous cum tribute helmet over 14 years from being 10 years old. Or whether the driver said something that did or didn't respond to a lot of comment about it. Or happened to mention Senna, or not, talking about a new evolution of the design.

This is who we're talking about, according to Frank Williams: "Lewis made fewer mistakes than anybody else [in his first year], but someone like him comes down from heaven only once every 20 years."

He's a driver. An exceptional driver. Senna would say "have some respect, your desperate petty bashing is pathetic."

Stick to reading Lewis' mind, please.

Is anyone paying tribute to MS helmet yet or is it still too early?

Perhaps not -but that's not my point.



Yeah - too bad he can't own up on where his helmet design came from (or who ACTUALLY finished third at the Aussie GP for that matter....). If you want to pretend (along with all of Lew's excited fan-base) that Senna's helmet never existed and that Lewis and daddy came out of a darkened room after 7 days and 7 nights and presented the world with THE helmet - then you're welcome to it. I will respectfully disagree and remember that Senna had the same helmet 27 years ago.



I presume that you and Senna must have been close friends for you to have such information? I suspect that if Senna heard Hamilton's absurd dissertation on how he created the Senna helmet design a full 15 years after Senna did, he'd call Hamilton a wanker (or words to that effect). You see, Senna was one of the best GP drivers of his age - so his reaction would not have been to look at Hamilton and say "what a swell and talented driver he is" - <but not of course, as good as me>) His reaction would be to say "just because you're a good driver, you can't lie your face off." Funny - That's what Stirling Moss said about Lewwie after Melbourne - and Stirling fancies Lew.

When is too early? If a new GP driver appeared with MS's helmet, who would be more flattered than MS? Well - that is if the driver didn't try to pretend that he and his Daddy invented the helmet and that Schumacher's remarkably similar helmet is merely a co-incidence....

There is no doubt at all that the yellow color was a trademark of the best driver that ever lived...Tazio Nuvolari, of course!

well done!

Mincemeat, thats what I think Senna would make of Hamilton.

Much ado about nothing!

Telling porkies again, Bruce?