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As we posted last week, Nick Heidfeld is wearing a special helmet design for his home Grand Prix this weekend but he is not the only German on the grid and he is not the only one who brought a new helmet to the Nürburgring.

There are five German drivers and three of them will be wearing new lids.

Sebastian Vettel, who seems to like changing his helmet design, is wearing a new silver version while Heidfeld’s helmet was designed by a fan who won a competition on his website.

Timo Glock’s design came from a rather younger fan, though.  Panasonic ran a ‘Kids School’ competition to design a helmet for Timo to wear at the German Grand Prix and at the British Grand Prix, Glock studied the entries and selected a winner; six-year-old Tom Luca Hoffmann from Bad Lippspringe, around 400km north east of the Nürburgring.

Tom’s design features Glock driving his Toyota past cheering fans.  Glock said:

I was very impressed with Tom’s drawing because it is quite detailed even though he is only a young kid; that’s why I chose it. I’m looking forward to racing with it in front of my home fans and hopefully it will be a lucky charm!

Both Heidfeld and Glock will be auctioning their helmets for charity after the race.

After a long three week break the season continues with the German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring.  It is the home Grand Prix for fully one quarter of the drivers on the grid but realistically there is only one German with a chance of standing on the top step on Sunday.

Sebastian Vettel comes to the Nürburgring fresh from his victory at Silverstone and he will be hoping to maintain that momentum in front of his home crowd and further narrow the gap to Championship leader Jenson Button.  It will be Vettel’s first time around the Ring in an F1 car but he has raced (and won) there before in everything from karts to F3 and Renault World Series.

Timo Glock is another German yet to experience the Nürburgring in Formula One but, like Vettel, he has won there before in other classes.  After making it through to Q3 in Britain Glock just missed out on points in the race but he is hopeful of a strong finish in Germany:

I’ve had some good races so far and it has been nice to be battling at the front quite often. This weekend is another chance to do that and I can’t wait.

Despite having a famous Finnish father, Nico Rosberg is actually a German citizen.  He set the third fastest lap at Silverstone and ended the race in fifth which boosted him to seventh in the Drivers’ Championship and Williams to fifth in the Constructors’ Championship – ahead of McLaren.

Rosberg is obviously at home on the circuit.  In this video he talks us through a lap of the Ring – blindfolded.

Nick Heidfeld will be sporting a special helmet design for his home race but it will take more than a fresh coat of paint to turn the BMW Sauber F1.09 into a race winning machine.  Two years ago Heidfeld became the first driver in 30 years to pilot an F1 car around the old Nordschleife circuit, christened The Green Hell by Jackie Stewart.

Heidfeld is in real danger of being beaten by compatriot Adrian Sutil on Sunday.  Force India have been steadily improving all season and if Sutil hadn’t gone off in a big way in qualifying he may have finished in the points in the British Grand Prix.  There is a chance of rain on Sunday and if that happens then it is quite possible Adrian Sutil could score Force India’s first points.

To make your predictions in round 9 of the F1 Buzz prediction game (and be in with a chance to win some nice prizes), just leave a comment on this post with your driver predictions for the race in the following format:

Pole:
First:
Second:
Third:
Fastest lap:

Remember, the deadline for entries is start of qualifying on Saturday, that’s 12:00 GMT.

Good luck!

Image & video: Williams

Continuing the tradition of drivers wearing special helmet designs for their home Grands Prix, Nick Heidfeld has chosen one of over 9000 designs fans submitted to his website to wear at the German Grand Prix next week.

At the British Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button both commissioned special helmet designs for their home race, although it didn’t seem to bring either of them much luck on the day.

The design by Hungarian fan Tamás Simon is made up entirely of circles and impressed Heidfeld and his helmet designer Jens Munser.  Heidfeld said:

This helmet stood out from all the rest. In fact, as soon as I saw it, I thought that it was a likely winner. My immediate impression was…’Wow!’

You can see Nick’s top 11 here.  As Heidfeld explains:

In the end, it was very difficult to limit the finalists to ten. That’s why we decided to go for a shortlist of eleven.

Thank god he didn’t choose the one with ears or the one with the big picture of his bearded face on the side.

After the race, the helmet will be donated to German television station RTL who will auction it off with proceeds going to the ‘Wir helfen Kindern’ charity.

You can submit bids by e-mail to auktion@spendenmarathon.de.

There has been some speculation in the German press recently about Nick Heidfeld’s future at BMW.  His contract is due to expire this year and there have been rumours that he will be dropped from the struggling team at the end of the season.

The Bild newspaper said on the Saturday of the Monaco Grand Prix that while Kubica will be retained, Heidfeld is marked for replacement in 2010.

I’m not sure where the rumour started but it doesn’t really make much sense when you think about it.  Nick has consistently outperformed his team mate this year and as Heidfeld commented:

I don’t know why they would get rid of a driver who has scored six out of the six points.

The team seem pretty supportive of Heidfeld, too.  Last week they posted a glowing article on their website describing Nick’s ‘talent and meticulous work ethic’ in his career with BMW.

They point out that Heidfeld scored the first podium for the team in Hungary in 2006.  In 2007 he made the first front row start for the team as well as another two podiums and in 2008 he achieved BMW’s first two fastest laps.

He may have the record for the most podiums without a win (12) but I think Heidfeld’s seat at BMW is pretty safe.

Image: BMW AG