Where's your head at?
Drivers in every category of motorsport share one common attribute: they wear a crash helmet. The race to make them as safe as possible never ends, as Charles Bradley finds out
As the old saying goes, if you've got a $5 head, get a $5 lid. Flippancy aside, it's improved helmet safety that saved Felipe Massa from a serious brain injury - or worse - in Hungarian Grand Prix qualifying last year.
The technology that goes into the modern-day 'skid lid' costs quite a bit more than $5, but when you see how it stands up to a huge impact like Massa's, you realise it's worth every penny of the asking price.
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Charles Bradley is Motorsport.com’s Global Editor in Chief. After spending five years in the aerospace industry in his native North Wales, while working weekends as a freelance writer at racetracks around the UK, Charles joined the staff of Motoring News in the heart of London. He transferred to the nascent Autosport.com team in 2000 before transitioning to the magazine, becoming its Editor between 2011 and 2014. Charles then upped sticks to work in America, as Motorsport.com’s Editor in Chief, where he created the multi-national and multi-lingual editorial team that quickly became the world’s most-read motorsport website. He was instrumental in delivering three of the biggest Global F1 Fan Surveys in sports history and is also a multiple award-winning scriptwriter. Charles is an overseas member of the Guild of Motoring Writers. He lives in Miami Beach with his wife Helen – and a cat that’s named after Serbia’s top football club.
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