A Christchurch father-of-three has won a nationwide competition to design a helmet for Formula One driver Liam Lawson.
The competition, run by Lawson’s team sponsors Red Bull, invited New Zealanders to submit original designs and offered a rare chance to see their creativity come to life on the F1 grid.
It received nearly 500 entries and showcased a wide range of styles and ideas from across New Zealand.
After hours of judging the submissions, Lawson chose the winning design himself, by Christchurch’s Ian Ebbs.
“Massive thanks to everyone who sent in a design for this competition. I went through every single submission. I was blown away with the amount of effort people put into this,” Lawson said.
Lawson said the chosen design stood out to him straight away.
“It’s bold, full of energy and colour, and encompasses so many things I love about coming home to New Zealand,” Lawson said.
“I’m pumped to see it brought to life and even more pumped to wear it on track.”
Ebbs, 46, said a stop at a dairy with his son had sparked the idea to enter the competition.
“My son is super into Formula One and he saw a poster for a Red Bull competition, and was like, ‘How do we enter that?‘” he said.
“But I just said, ‘we’ll give it a go’.”
Ebbs said he worked as a company director but didn’t have a background in design.
He said that his design was influenced by Lawson’s personal journey, as well as input from his children.
“I spent a bit of time just looking at the helmets that he’d had in the past and the kind of stuff he liked,” Ebbs said.
“I settled on pink, blue and white as the main colours, since Liam often uses them on his helmets.
“At first, I thought of Lightning McQueen, but I ended up focusing on his new love for golf.
“It reflects the New Zealand landscape, golf, Kiwiana and Aotearoa itself, to capture Liam’s pride and personality.
“I started picturing a Kiwi bird in a pink backwards cap driving a golf cart – I wanted a fun, cartoon-like style that evolved into something more layered, with elements like ferns, rolling hills, clouds, kiwifruit and the shape of New Zealand.”
A lifelong Formula One fan, Ebbs has passed his passion on to his family.
As part of his prize, he will be travelling to Singapore with his 8-year-old son, Michael Ebbs, to deliver the helmet to Lawson in person.
“We never miss a qualifier or race, and the idea that he’ll be wearing my design is just surreal – getting to hand it to him ourselves is incredible,” Ian Ebbs said.
“This is incredibly exciting for our family. We’ve followed Liam for a long time.”
The custom helmet will be officially unveiled in the lead-up to the Singapore Grand Prix next month, with the handover taking place ahead of the race weekend.