I really, really want to see this refined and submitted again. I like the white where it is on the chin. Some vents or something on the back to react to Redline wouldn't go amiss, but most importantly... I see what you were going for here, and I think it's a great idea and should absolutely be integrated. IMO, Gauss's theme should branch out away from just "goes fast" to SPORTS and this helmet does exactly that. I think Gauss should fit somewhere between a hockey/football player and a racecar in the shape of a man, and this works for that.

Suffice it to say, I LOVE the chin area and I hope you think very carefully before making edits to the shape of that part of it especially. If you do end up deciding to resize the helmet to make it 1-10% smaller overall, I hope you maintain the ratio that you have now. As it is, it brings to mind old hockey helmets, and the top of the head resembles a bicycle helmet, and I really think that's a clever addition to Gauss's "style".

Maybe you have the grey area as matte instead of metallic because, like me, you dislike Gauss and how overly metallic he is on every. Single. Channel. You just have to make the parts that you DO give in and make metallic just as shiny as the rest of the body (the blue and bronze-like channels, in this case). Even if you choose to make one colour channel NOT be a 1-1 with the rest of the skin, the other two should be an exact match so it doesn't end up looking like the helmet doesn't match.