2023-04-26 06:52:09
Not only has Bahrain, the small kingdom in the Gulf region, hosted one of the Formula One World Championship rounds since 2004, but also in 2015 it attracted the manufacture of drivers’ helmets.
Aref Yazbek, General Manager of the “Racing Force” group, headquartered in Italy, says that in the Bahrain race on the fifth of last March, the first round of the 2023 season, “Bell Helmets that we produce, 14 drivers from almost all teams out of Twenty” participants in the World Championships.
Among them are former British world champion Lewis Hamilton, Charles Leclerc of Monaco and Spaniard Carlos Science, in addition to members of the maintenance crews of Ferrari, McLaren, Alfa Romeo and others, according to Yazbeck.
It takes 14 days to produce one helmet, given that it is mostly manual work despite the use of different equipment and machines.
Inside the factory, workers wearing gray T-shirts with the inscription “Factory Team” are busy smoothing the edges of the helmets, while others give the helmets an artistic touch by painting them according to each driver’s model in different colors and designs.
Yazbeck points out that all members of the Williams team, especially the Thai driver Alexander Albon and the American driver Logan Sargent, wear all the “Racing Force” products of helmets, shoes and racing uniforms.
“under one roof”
The group, which specializes in the manufacture of racing and motorsport equipment, owns different brands, one of which is “Bell”, which was founded in 1954 in the United States, with the production of the first helmet in the world, which was considered an invention at the time and is currently on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
In the nineties of the last century, production moved to China, then it was distributed between China, Italy and Belgium in the early 2000s.
However, Yazbek (41 years), who is of Lebanese origin, points out, “We wanted to re-gather everything under one roof.”
He explains that “among the reasons for moving to Bahrain is the existence of a free trade agreement between Bahrain and the United States and with other countries such as Switzerland,” considering that “it is very important for us because more than 55% of our products are shipped to the United States, one of our largest markets in the world.” “.
Bahrain, Washington’s strategic ally in the region, was the first Gulf country to sign a free trade agreement with the United States, which entered into force in 2005.
Within the corridors of the factory, hundreds of helmets are stacked side by side on iron racks, in preparation for the final stage of manufacturing, during which workers place stickers on each helmet that usually bear the names of the sponsors.
On a red-painted wall at the entrance to one of the manufacturing halls, it was written that the number of employees exceeds 500 and they come from 35 different nationalities and “work for the same goal”.
“It’s very nice because you can really see a nice community of different citizens under one roof,” says Yazbek.
big success
In the lobby of the company’s headquarters, a helmet was displayed that Frenchman Romain Grosjean wore during a terrible accident at the Bahrain Grand Prix in 2020, which he miraculously survived.
The group intends to increase the level of manufacturing this year by expanding its facilities from seven thousand square meters to about 12 thousand by the end of the year.
The final touches are placed on the helmets with the installation of pieces that protect the drivers’ faces, then they are packed in boxes with their spare parts in preparation for export to more than eighty countries around the world.
Bahrain was among the first Gulf states to invest in sports as part of a soft power strategy to diversify the income sources of its oil-dependent economies.
In 2004, the Kingdom became the first Arab country to organize a Formula One race, before the UAE joined it with the Abu Dhabi Prize starting in 2009, until Saudi Arabia and Qatar joined the calendar starting from the 2021 season.
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