Lewis Hamilton has revealed why he chose to bring back his traditional yellow helmet colour, and has spoken in more detail on what to expect from a new documentary series on the seven-time champion.
Hamilton says that he chose to revitalise his original yellow helmet colour, albeit in a brighter fluorescent shade, because he thinks fans would not be able to tell the two Mercedes cars apart otherwise.
He first entered Formula 1 at McLaren sporting a predominantly yellow helmet in which he carried iterations of in each of his seasons at McLaren, then continued into his first season at Mercedes in 2013 and for winter testing in 2014.
Then he switched to a more white-based design with flashes of yellow incorporated into the design in different styles until the 2017 season – where he again opted for a mainly yellow design for most of that year. For 2018 and 2019 he again utilised a white design but with blocks of red and black on the sides of the helmet, and then for 2020 and 2021 he followed the lead of the switch to a black car livery with a new purple and black design.
Prior to the Bahrain GP, Hamilton’s W13 was unveiled adorned in a slightly revised livery with the yellow featuring on the wheel fairings and race number alongside the option of the yellow T-cam. George Russell’s car meanwhile sports blue race numbers, red wheel fairings and the black T-cam.
“My original helmet was yellow but what I noticed and sensitive to is those that are watching the grands prix can’t tell the difference between the two cars, and that was an issue I brought up to the team,” Hamilton explained to written media.
“I spent hours at home after the launch with my iPad, taking a picture and editing on some sort of editor, and sending these pictures of what the car livery would look better as to Toto [Wolff] and to Ola [Kallenius].
“I did some research and I tried to look for what the most popping colour would be and came back to yellow, so we put that on the car but then I realised you still can’t see the helmets with these halos, so I decided to bring some real light to the helmet.”
Hamilton also revealed more details on the under-the-radar announcement from Apple that they are working with Hamilton’s new start-up production company on a behind the scenes documentary on his life at and away from the track. He was asked on what exactly should be expected from the new series and whether it will impact his involvement with Netflix’s shooting of the fifth season of Drive To Survive.
“It won’t affect my involvement in the Netflix series but it is a really exciting part of my life,” says Hamiltion. “I’ve started a production company working on creating documentaries and movies. I have a movie that I’m working on which is also super-exciting.
“The documentary, yeah, it’s a challenge; of course you want it to be great. There’s lots of great documentaries out there and lots of not-so-great documentaries out there but I think the ultimate goal of the documentary is really to explain the story and hopefully to inspire lots of kids out there, lots of parents even.
“It’s a journey of a family that had a dream to do better and I’m sure there are lots of parents in this room who want the best for their kids and would do absolutely anything they can to create better opportunities for them moving forward and this is what that story is really about,” summed up Hamilton.
The unnamed production will be produced by Hamilton and his talent manager Penni Thow, One Community and Box to Box Films – the producers of Netflix’s Drive To Survive series.
The story was written by Danny Herbert
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