Photos

2005 – Another batch of helmets ready to go off to David. Since meeting David at a Camel event in Spa (where he was representing Camel Paul Stewart Racing and I was with Camel Team Lotus in 1988 or 1989) I’m not sure how many helmets I’ve made, modified, fitted parts to.
(Photo James Penrose)

2007 – DC at Spanish Grand Prix
(Photo James Penrose)

Article

In 1995 David had an accident in testing at Silverstone in the Williams. It was not unlike the accident that happened at Imola that took Ayrton Senna’s life in 1994. The difference was that he hit the opposite side of the car to the barrier and he survived. David’s head hit the cockpit side hard, ahead of the steering wheel.

To explain what this means – sit in a chair, stretch your arms out fully forward and imagine that your head could move ahead of your hands – this with the seatbelts – a six piece seatbelt – fully tightened.

Take this a stage further and note that David had a habit of tightening his belts so tight they needed loosening when he came in to pit the car, otherwise he couldn’t breath during the stop. That should explain just how far the upper body and neck can stretch if the accident is severe enough. EVEN with fully tight professional racing belts.

This accident gave us a chance to look into injuries at the time the FIA had accepted my 1990 proposal for what Sid Watkins liked to call the ‘F1 Super Helmet’ (what we all know as the FIA 8860 series of carbon fibre helmets nowadays).

I was working for Arai Helmet Ltd. at the time and so I had the helmet after the accident and Sid was able to do a CT scan of David’s head and also of the helmet to compare injuries to head and damage, compression etc. to the helmet. It was an extremely useful start point in the project that was just commencing in the aftermath of the awful Imola event in 1994.

From this time forward I worked on a great many Coulthard helmets. Long after I finished the full time work with Arai I still made many helmets for him every year. Also fitting HANS® for him in the years I was full time on that work.