MotoGP: Rossi goes Mexican with winter testing helmet

Valentino Rossi is taking inspiration from Latin America for his 2018 winter testing helmet with Aldo Drudi’s latest creation inspired by the Huichol bead art of Mexico. The nine-time world champion will sport the livery on his AVG Pista GP for this season’s three winter outings in Malaysia, Thailand and Qatar after debuting it last month in a private test.

Also running a variation of the design on his car driving lid at the Monza Rally, which he won in December, he says the art work is something that he’s always loved and that the design is perfect.

“Huichol art immediately intrigued me, because it uses many of my symbols, like the sun and moon or the turtle. We have tried to recreate the effect of the beads that the Mexicans use to bring color and shape to these objects, but to do so with a Valentino Rossi twist.

“The helmet looks really good, Aldo Drudi did a great job, as did Davide in particular, the graphics and coloring manager at Drudi Performance; he created the beads with a brush, one by one. We might say that the helmet has become a work of art, something we’ve never seen before.”

However, with MCN’s sources saying that the design took almost a hundred hours to complete, Rossi won’t be wanting to crash it when testing resumes on the 28th of this month at the Sepang circuit.