The new season helmets

[MJW]

At this time of year I admit to getting excited about the new season, what will be the colours schemes on rally cars, what recce cars (those Volvos are getting old now) will the teams be using, new racesuits etc. But as RALLYFAN 2003 posted in another thread about Kimi, the new FIA standard 8860 comes in for helmets. As far as I know its only Stilo who make the open face helmet to this standard, and even in full face version only a few helmets, normally associated with F1, (BELL, ARAI, Schuberth etc) make helmets certified to this standard. What will happen to all those Sparco / Peltor / OMP using drivers - will it mean a "control helmet" as well. Noticed Kimi was already using the new Stilo

The Helmet is the new Stilo WRC helmet for 2010. It has a new mic design and it uses a DES visor design. All drivers in 2010 must wear a 8860-2004 certified helmet and this helmet meets this spec. It's probably the only open face rally helmet that meets this standard. The ST4R helmet that Loeb wore in 2009 was believed to be 8860 certified. The ST4R is 8860-2004 certified.

You can buy it at most stores now that sell Stilo helmets.

[ARF]

Sparco will have a helmet to this standard also, should be first half of the year. But so far Stilo has the upper hand.

[MJW]

Sparco will have a helmet to this standard also, should be first half of the year. But so far Stilo has the upper hand.

So all priority drivers must use the 8860 standard helmet, of which Stilo will be the only make ready for the first round in Sweden?

[ARF]

Here's the list: http://argent.fia.com/web/fia-public.ns ... helmet.pdf
I'd say some Bell models are also suitable for rally.

[rv65]

There is a Stilo ST4R that's not 8860-2004. The ST4R 8860 is 8860-2004 helmet. This FIA spec requires the helmet to be 50 percent stronger than the current helmets.

[rv65]

It would be interesting to see if other companies will make new helmets.

[rv65]

The DES visor is adjustable so the driver/co-driver to reduce the amount of sun light. Why do rally drivers like open face helmets so much?

[AndyRAC]

At this time of year I admit to getting excited about the new season, what will be the colours schemes on rally cars, what recce cars (those Volvos are getting old now) will the teams be using, new racesuits etc. But as RALLYFAN 2003 posted in another thread about Kimi, the new FIA standard 8860 comes in for helmets. As far as I know its only Stilo who make the open face helmet to this standard, and even in full face version only a few helmets, normally associated with F1, (BELL, ARAI, Schuberth etc) make helmets certified to this standard. What will happen to all those Sparco / Peltor / OMP using drivers - will it mean a "control helmet" as well. Noticed Kimi was already using the new Stilo

Have the colour schemes of the cars changed at all though? So Ford have still got that mish-mash of clashing colours....

[MJW]

The DES visor is adjustable so the driver/co-driver to reduce the amount of sun light. Why do rally drivers like open face helmets so much?

.

[MJW]

It would be interesting to see if other companies will make new helmets.

I honestly wonder if they will bother. The cost of R&D and homologation of these helmets must mean a big financial comitment to the helmet manufacturers. Maybe Sparco, just to have an alternative. Somehow I can't see OMP, Bell, etc all trying to make a wrc spec helmet as the number of helmets sold is likely to be small.