Remember the prototype Schuberth helmet Michael Schumacher was spotted racing in back in 2008? It was a radically-vented, unconventionally-shaped work-in-progress that the Formula One legend was helping to develop through his ill-fated bike racing career. The all-new Schuberth SR1, the company’s first ever supersports motorcycle helmet, appears to be the result of that development. Scheduled for debut at Intermot, these teaser photos reveal what could become the ultimate helmet for racers and track day fanatics.
Schuberth, which is just re-entering the US market this month with its C3 flip-front, doesn’t just make helmets for GS riders and European cops. Through its relationship with Michael Schumacher, Schuberth developed the most technologically advanced and safest helmet for Formula One car racing. Felippe Massa was wearing one when a suspension spring hit him in the head at last year’s Hungarian Grand Prix. The relative speed of the tiny spring was so high that it impacted Massa’s visor with a force of two tons, yet the visor withstood the below, shielding the driver from near certain death. Despite successfully protecting Massa, Schuberth still collected data from the accident and used it to modify its helmets to be even safer.
To think that that kind of knowledge, racing experience and technology is being applied to a motorcycle helmet is extremely exciting.
These teaser photos reveal a helmet that has some kind of unique visor locking mechanism, lots of ventilation and what looks to be a unique shape. Obviously we can’t see the final helmet in full, but it does appear to have ditched the enormous chin vents that Schumi was using two years ago.
What does appear to have been carried over from that prototype helmet is interior padding that extends far below the helmet’s actual shell and a radical shape that looks like it more closely follows the lines of the human head than the fish bowels we currently wear. Schuberth uses computer modeling to tailor the shape of each F1 helmet to its wearer’s head, but obviously that’d be impracticable for a commercial motorcycle helmet.
If Schuberth is able to adapt its F1 goals of the lightest possible weight, smallest possible size, maximum possible ventilation, maximum aerodynamic stability and extreme noise dampening, expect a flagship supersport helmet as light as anything currently on the market, but with top shelf safety and extremely low noise levels. The SR1 is scheduled for an official debut at Intermot Cologne on 6 October.
via Schuberth Blog
In the gallery below, the SR1 is the all-black helmet only pictured in detail, the shots of Schumacher show him wearing the development prototype.
