A huge “5” on the back, in the colors of the United States flag, red, blue and white, adorned with two small stars for his two Moto 2 World Championship titles in 2015 and 2016. Another, smaller, on the upper part, always with two stars. Without forgetting the famous red bands of the “stars and stripes”, the name of the American flag, and the RedBull logo. This is what the work of art, or rather the helmet, that the French Moto GP rider, Johann Zarco will wear, will look like for the Grand Prix of Austin, in the United States, whose main race will start this Sunday (21 hours).
The pilots’ helmet is one of the only objects on which they can add a touch of their personality. “Moto GP riders are not free on anything. The color of their suit and their motorcycle is imposed on them, while the helmet is their baby. The contracts are handled by the managers, but for the helmets we are directly with the pilots”, executive Florian Fouris, racing manager at Shark, a French helmet manufacturer based in Marseille.
Close collaboration between manufacturer and driver
What Johann Zarco confirms: “When we are a partner with RedBull, we already place the logo and then we do our decoration. They are very demanding on their location and their color, so better take that into account from the start, otherwise you ruin the whole decoration”. This does not prevent close collaboration between the helmet manufacturer, the designer, and the pilot. “Shark has a freelance designer who works with them, and he also has the reflexes to think about the decoration to make it a replica. You make a nice decoration, and at the same time for them to make 10,000 copies, it’s achievable. Some decorations can be done with a painter, by hand, but he has 3 helmets to do, not 10,000”, confides the pilot.
Florian Fouris, for example, went to spend a week in California at Troy Lee Designs, a brand recently acquired by Shark, with Miguel Oliveira and Lorenzo Fellon to design their helmet for the 2023 season.
Replicas marketed around 1,000 euros
From the pilot’s helmet comes a replica collection marketed by Shark for the general public. If the price of a pilot’s helmet reaches 3,000 euros with foams, customization, decoration, when a replica helmet is marketed around 1,000 euros. “I like to be really close to the brand. Because I could just be the pilot, say “I want my decoration and I don’t care about your business, you’re already making money off my ass so I’m the one who chooses”. No, we are in intelligent collaboration, and I like doing it like that, ”he says. “The pilots are very involved in the conception and design of their helmet for the replicas because they are super proud that the fans can wear the same helmet”, confirms Florian Fouris.
To the point of imagining the design of next season’s helmet in December, so that the replica is ready to be marketed when the pilot wears it in the race for the first time. “It’s weird to think in December about your helmet that you’ll be wearing in mid-May, but that’s the way it should be done. They think for me, and I just have to choose, give my opinion. It’s easy and I like it,” says Johann Zarco. The one he will wear this weekend for the Austin Grand Prix is the one created last year for the race in the USA. In addition to this, it will also wear the 2022 one, or perhaps a new 2023 decor, for the French Grand Prix on May 14, and the “Winter test” edition for the Valencia Grand Prix.
Personalized support
And it is better to think about it beforehand because on average, a pilot uses 8 to 10 helmets per season, and not necessarily at each crash. The helmet is changed on average once every three falls because the helmet hits only rarely. Except for some daredevils like the Spanish driver Alex Debón, for whom Shark had to think about changing his decoration because of his too many crashes. “A Spanish flag to paint only saves time,” laughs Florian Fouris.
Because the manufacturer offers a personalized service to all its riders, Johann Zarco and Jorge Martin at Pramac, Miguel Oliveira and Raul Fernandez from Aprilia Racing Team Gresini in Moto GP, up to Lorenzo Fellon, the French rider in Moto 3. We are always alongside the pilots. There is no test without us being there. We leave nothing to chance, and we talk a lot with them. We offer them a complete service, with a semi-trailer present on European races in which you can fit a helmet from A to Z, but also outside Europe, ”says Florian Fouris, racing manager at Shark.
A long-standing partnership such as with Johann Zarco allows the manufacturer “to know it by heart”. “He still uses the same Racer-R Pro GP, but there may be a different work on the inside with more or less support, just to not have the helmet glued to the face when you are driving at 360 km/h. We are going to play on the interior foam, change the height of the cap for a better position, we can add pads to suck up perspiration”, lists the racing manager.
Valuable feedback
The perfect knowledge of the pilot is one of the explanations for Shark’s pilot recruitment strategy. “We don’t say to ourselves ‘hey, it’s good, we’ll take it.’ We would not take Bagnaia because he is world champion. From the junior competitions, we are present with our truck and our racing service, which allows us to establish partnerships quite early with the drivers. Zarco, we have been working with him since 2009, his first year in 125cc. He’s French, lives 1h15 from us, so it’s easy. He comes to our house, we go to his house. Miguel Oliveira, we’ve had him since his first year of Moto 3, Raul Fernandez left us a year before coming back quickly, ”explains Florian Touris.
Feedback from the race is very valuable for the brand: “They reach speeds of over 350 km/h, and get into some serious bugnes. We use this information at all levels. As soon as a pilot gives positive or negative feedback, we inform the research and development department. Again last night, I received a message from Johann which I passed on to them,” explains Shark’s racing manager, working closely with the 30 people who make up the R&D department based at the head office in Marseille.
Safety and performance
Because beyond the aesthetic aspect, the helmet remains the pilot’s best ally in terms of safety, along with the suit. “Shark is the most up-to-date manufacturer in terms of safety,” says Johann Zarco. All the helmets worn by the pilots must meet the FIM standard, “the specific standard for racing, which is more demanding with the notion of perforation”, explains Vincent Betton, manager France at Shark. If helmet evolutions are not numerous, the Race-r Pro GP, the pilots’ model, already meets the ECE 22.06 standard, which has been in force on the road since July 2022 for manufacturers, and much more drastic than the previous one.
Without forgetting performance, the watchword of the drivers and their teams. It is not uncommon for Shark to be invited into certain teams’ wind tunnels for aerodynamic testing. In this area too, Shark sets the standard. “The function creates the design, each curve has a function”, recalls Vincent Betton, manager France at Shark. “For the record, the first race that Jorge Lorenzo wore this helmet, he overtook Marc Marquez on the final straight of the Mugello circuit and Yamaha gave us a wink saying that we had participated in this victory thanks to the helmet”, smiles Florian Fouris. Jorge Martin’s top speed record of 363.6 km/h, achieved with a Shark helmet, is another source of pride for the French brand.