Watch How Formula 1 Helmets Are Made

The Formula 1 paddock is rife with fancy one-off bits of technology. From the cars to the pit stalls, just about every thing you can see has something special about it compared to a run-of-the-mill consumer version. The safety gear is no different, including the drivers’ helmets. Here is a look at how these custom helmets are made and just how wildly durable they are when complete.

This picture inside the Stilo Helmets factory in Italy comes by way of Driver61 on YouTube. After taking a tour through the factory, he laid out the process of building an F1-grade helmet and the interesting points that make them unique. A few of those details caught my eye.

The most intriguing is that the core components of an F1 helmet and those sold to middle-pack racers like me are not much different. There is a comfort liner made of foam and fabric, EPS foam for impact energy dissipation, and the outer shell. Each of those components just gets a little more attention on a helmet destined for the F1 grid rather than a local autocross.

Most helmets come in a range of sizes that are designed to fit most users. F1 drivers are not “most users,” however, and when dealing with the extremes of motorsport even the helmet needs to be fine tuned. This is why F1 drivers receive custom helmet shells designed to protect their specific head as best as possible without extra material, since an F1 driver can experience as many as 5g when cornering. Even a lightweight helmet gets very heavy when we’re talking about that kind of force. The shells are custom-sized and made from carbon fiber, including an extra-thick section right above the visor designed to prevent any debris from puncturing or deforming the helmet—these are open cockpit cars after all.

While track debris is one problem to deal with, another are the aerodynamics. Everything has aero consequences in F1, and helmets are no exception. Small spoilers and air dams are added to the shells to help keep helmets from being pulled up and off drivers’ heads while out on track. It seems a little comical, but take a look at the helmets as drivers climb into the cars on the grid ahead of this weekend’s season opener in Australia, and you will see that just as each car has a unique aero package, so too does each driver’s helmet.

Stilo does serious testing of the helmets and components to ensure drivers can focus on the driving while behind the wheel. If you’ve ever been curious just how extremely durable a helmet like this can be, though, Driver61 took a fresh-off-the-line Stilo to a gun range and pointed a rifle at it. Although a .22 LR is not exactly high-power by any measure, the fact that it merely chipped the finish of the braced carbon fiber section above the visor is mighty impressive. Try that with ye olde canvas helmet …