Most drivers in racing have moulded well fitting radio earplugs these days, but it was not always so.

Back in 1990 helmet radios systems were generally made up of heavy speakers weighing around 220 gms each – this weight beside each ear. But with crude fitting being the norm then they might easily be next to the temples also.

Not only did these heavy speakers add to the neck strain of already heavy helmets of the time, but it also was hugely dangerous if there were impacts to the sides of the head.

Take into account this was the era where there were NO cockpit side headrests, NO headrests to the rear of any energy absorbing capability either.

During the time looking after Satoru Nakajima’s helmets up to 1989 I’d been lucky to have contact through Arai with Mr Hachisuka of K-tel radio systems. He was pretty horrified at the crude radio speakers we were using in F1 – they were big enough to be in one of the old type Bakelite desk telephones.

Hachisuka came up with a thin lightweight radio speaker which I fitted into Satoru’s helmets during 1989 for test sessions. Satoru had the joy of getting small shocks in his ears and Team Lotus staff had the pleasure of him not hearing a lot of what we said to him over the radio… But, by and by progress was made and the shocks stopped and the effective working of the speakers improved.

It took a good time to perfect and was in Jerez 1990 after Satoru had left the team, that we felt the speakers sufficiently were reliable to use in a full F1 Grand Prix weekend. I fitted them in Martin Donnelly’s helmet. Incredibly the very same helmet he was using when he had his huge accident.

Late into the evening after the accident Sid Watkins came by the Lotus motorhome to return the helmet from the medical centre. I showed him the speakers and also the ones I’d removed the previous evening. Sid actually smiled and it was clear that the difference was significant.

Sadly it was another four years and the 1994 Monaco Grand Prix where Karl Wendlinger had a huge accident ending with him in a coma. In his helmet that day were the same type of HEAVY old type speakers I’d taken out of Martin’s helmet four years before. Nothing had changed in four years, but in the aftermath of Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger’s deaths at Imola the race before Monaco things finally started to change.

Spanish Grand Prix Jerez 1990 – pt 1
Spanish Grand Prix Jerez 1990 – pt 3