I’m not saying that everyone needs to use the team’s colours on his helmet – but Sutil ditched his own colours for the team’s test colours in late 2007 – and stuck with it for more than 3 years, despite the team using a new colour scheme at least since 2009.

I agree that the Schumacher helmet has been better; but it is interesting that in this case, without really major impact on their drivers original design (who knows why Schumacher changed it, maybe he didn’t want to stress how many Germans F1 now has thanks to him :-p ), the team still managed to get the drivers to fit their car: not by fitting with the chrome/silver turquoise (that would be really hard to do while still keeping them distinct and nice!), but by having both quite brightly contrasting helmet designs (and I suppose they joked a bit with Schumacher for wanting their first car, and hence the orange/reddish camera pod) that fit very well.

The moment I saw d’Ambrosio’s design, I loved it, very well done, simple and clear, with the Belgian colours in it as well. I agree with Ned that Hamiltons design will likely be remembered well, because of its history, his results, and the design itself. I really liked to see a bit more of the Spanish flag back on Alonso, and I wonder in how far the colours of Massa’s design are derived from the Brazilian flag, it seems there’s some of that there.

By the way, when I first saw the change Liuzzi had made, I thought he matched the boring grey of the 2010 HRT car, while even they managed to get of it for this year!

Rosberg – I feel like a non-matte grey or a shiny silver would make that helmet top class. The matte grey kind ruins it for me.

Petrov – I like the fact he’s used the flag, but it’s not a very good design.

Sutil – The colours don’t work for me, just looks dull.

Kovalainen – I think especially in 2007, his helmet looked inspired by JJ Lehto. It still has an aspect of that but not as much.

Trulli – Looked better with the shiny red but in the dark Lotus it didn’t work so the switch to the bright orange made sense.

Liuzzi – The grey this round is actually sparkly. Looks terrible. Was one of my favourites when the grey was white.

D’Ambrosio – Really like this one. I’m a fan of clean and simple.

Hamilton’s- If any of the current helmets are to be remembered in 20 years time, it will almost surely be Hamiltons. Very colourful, easy to identify, nice design… I think it’ll prove to be iconic.

Alguersuari’s- One of the few helmets which I rate differently to the article. I think it’s great, those jagged yellow lines are really striking. I think perhaps it seems a bit nodescript because Alguersuari is so anonymous, if a front runner like Alonso used it I reckon it’d be much more popular.

d’Ambrosio’s- It’s only just struck me how cool this helmet is! Very retro, and I think black, red and yellow always look good together.

Schumacher’s- OK, so it’s a bit dull, and the Monster box ruins it a bit. But I just love how much it stands out, it almost transforms the entire livery of the car. In a red car, it’d look boring.

Barrichello’s- More for the longevity factor than anything else. I love the helmet is almost identical to the one he used back in his Jordan days all those years ago. Kudos to him for sticking with for so long!