Pirelli drops US GP trophy design over potential copyright infringement

Pirelli was forced to pull its one-off trophies from the Formula 1 United States Grand Prix podium at the last minute after being made aware of the similarity in design to another product.

Autosport understands F1’s tyre manufacturer received notice on Saturday and took the decision not to use the special awards in Austin having not had time to investigate the matter fully.

Pirelli announced ahead of the weekend that ‘Heroo’ would make his debut on the podium at the Circuit of the Americas, the silhouette design being a collaboration between themselves and Italian designer Matteo Macchiavelli.

“In any discussion about Formula 1, it’s always the drivers who are portrayed as the heroes and rightly so, as they race at over 300km/h, reclining in a made-to-measure cockpit squeezed into a carbon fibre shell, with a 1000 horsepower Power Unit and a cell holding just over a hundred litres of fuel right behind them,” the press release read.

“While it’s true that the highest level of motorsport is much safer than before, even compared to the quite recent past, that takes nothing away from the heroic nature of the driver’s role. So Pirelli has chosen to illustrate this fact by having a rather unusual hero on the podium, in the shape of the trophy presented to the top three finishers in the FORMULA 1 PIRELLI UNITED STATES GRAND PRIX 2024 and it goes by the name of Heroo!”

Pirelli trophies for the United States GP

Photo by: Pirelli

Race winner Leclerc was expected to raise a version of the human-shaped trophy that had a golden yellow helmet and was sprinkled with gold dust – while silver and titanium would have been used for second-placed Carlos Sainz and Max Verstappen in third.

Instead, Leclerc was given a different, more generic trophy that did not contain the design.
Meanwhile, Autosport has also been told that Sainz and Verstappen were handed Pirelli wind tunnel tyres which had the wheel nuts engraved with their finishing positions as well as the American flag.

In its initial announcement, Pirelli also stated that replicas of Heroo would be available, produced in a limited production for collectors and fans.

It is unclear if that will still be the case given the trophy was pulled for a potential breach of copyright.

The original press release has also since been pulled from Pirelli’s website.