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Ayrton Senna’s 1992 helmet fetched more than £700,000 at auction - RM Sothebys
The helmet that Ayrton Senna was wearing when he famously helped to rescue an unconscious rival at Spa-Francorchamps in 1992 has sold for a world record £720,000.
Senna, who died tragically in a crash two years later, was wearing the Shoei helmet, painted in his signature yellow, green and dark blue, at the Belgian Grand Prix in 1992, when he raced for McLaren.
The Brazilian driver stopped in qualifying for that race to help stricken Ligier driver Érik Comas, running back through the smoke at great personal risk, cutting the car’s engine and holding Comas’s head until paramedics arrived. The Frenchman had been knocked unconscious following a heavy crash at Blanchimont corner.
Comas, whose foot was still on the throttle when Senna arrived, later credited the Brazilian with saving his life.
“It knocked me out like a KO in boxing,” he said of the crash. “And the car meanwhile went back to the middle of the track, but I kept, unconsciously, accelerating.
“I was unconscious in the car accelerating like crazy. Ayrton arrived and directly heard the crazy sound produced by the engine, the motor was screaming at 7,000 to 8,000 RPM or something around.
“He stopped his car, he ejected himself from it and at his own risk came to my car and stop the engine. Even with the yellow flags, the circuit was still very dangerous. He searched for the circuit breaker and stopped the motor preventing it from burning or even exploding.
“After the impact it seems that there were some leaks of fuels so the risk was high. In a few seconds it could have exploded, yes, probably, so Ayrton Senna saved my life, yes.”
RM Sotheby’s, which handled the sale, said the that £720,000 winning bid was a world record for auctioned race-worn helmets, surpassing the previous mark set by Charles Leclerc’s from the 2023 Monaco Grand Prix, which fetched £262,700 at a charity auction benefiting flood relief efforts in Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region.
The Shoei helmet was a custom, lightweight version of the X-4 model, weighing 100 to 200 grams less than the standard.
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