It’s round seventeen of the 2024 Formula 1 season—and we have to say, fans watching from the Baku City Circuit are beyond lucky to spectate rookies Oliver ‘Ollie’ Bearman and Franco Colapinto race in the grid. While it’s not so often that we’re greeted with one-off liveries and helmets for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, we’ve compiled our top five favorites from all the years. When it comes to special helmet designs and liveries, throwbacks would always take us back to entirely different eras—and today, we’re going back-to-Baku.
Although it was intended for the 2022 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, Vettel’s 2022 Azerbaijan Grand Prix special helmet for Aston Martin remains one of his best—the predominantly white one-off helmet featured seemingly handwritten texts in black, and considering it’s the Sebastian Vettel we know, the helmet came with his signature touch: advocacy for change and the colors of the German flag as his nationality painted across the helmet in the middle. Known for using his social media platforms to spread awareness on sustainability and climate change, Vettel’s helmet displayed phrases that remind us of the Earth’s worsening climate—from ‘our home is on fire’ to ‘winter is not coming’, Vettel’s message was poured effectively into his helmet as part of his platform.
Being the only driver to sport a special Azerbaijan Grand Prix helmet for the 2023 Formula 1 season, the French driver for Alpine went bright orange-red. With the Alpine logo above the visor and sponsor logos plastered surrounding the helmet, Ocon definitely caught the eyes of many fans for the fluorescent orange-red colour he opted for.
Vettel often sported one-off helmet designs that were white—driving for Scuderia Ferrari in the 2018 season of Formula 1, Vettel’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix helmet had hints of red tint for the prancing horse logo and lines that covered the sides of the helmet. Along with the three Ferrari logos (we can tell he loved this team!), logos of the sponsors were scattered among the primarily white helmet. Coupled with his classic pattern of having the colors of the German flag in the middle, his special helmet marked the simplicity that we all love.
Alfa Romeo tweaked their C42 for the 2022 Azerbaijan Grand Prix—their engine cover and side-pods were painted green, their middle bodywork in white, and the Halo to its nose in red. If you guessed it was a tribute to their Italian identity, you guessed it right!
Alfa Romeo’s special livery for their C42 was the Italian tricolor flag, and this one-off livery was undoubtedly one of their best and hardest to forget.
Another one from Vettel—but this time, it’s the 2016 Azerbaijan Grand Prix. Similar to the special helmet he wore for 2018 in Baku, this helmet was covered in an additional color of gold behind Ferrari’s prancing horse logo. We definitely won’t miss his significant helmet motif: the German flag! Colors of black, red, and yellow were presented across his helmet in the middle. The helmet featured more of a complex design rather than a minimalistic one, but perfectly captured Vettel’s personality onto a helmet as a canvas!
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