History of Numbering in F1

Photo by Alpine F1 Team via Alpine F1 Team - X/Twitter

I received an interest question of a friend of my about Kimi using the number 12 in tribute of his hero Ayrton Senna, if it wasn't a forbidden number as 17, Jules Bianchi number. The answer is "no", but some posts I saw made me want to make this post, grab a beverage, maybe some snack and enjoy your reading.

The numbers are a way to identify the drivers, and this go back to the old motor races. Talking about F1 different of we have right now, back in the day who choose the number was the organizers of the event, in the same season on driver could use a lot of different numbers, dependent when they signed up for, per example if they were 42nd on the list they would drive with the 42. In 62, when Graham Hill won the championship in some Grand Prixes start to accept the champion of the previous season use the number 1.
Things started to change in 1973, in Zandvoort, during the Dutch Grand Prix was determined that the numbers would stay as it were until the end of the season. But it was in1974 it was created a regulation for fixed numbers: Lotus (1 and 2) Ferrari (3 and 4), Tyrrell (5 and 6), McLaren (7 and 8), and so on... The numbers were gave accordingly with the position of the constructors of the previous year, the only teams that changed the numbers were the old champion team would change the number with the new champion team.

A spoiler of one of the topics of this post:

• That's the reason when Senna won in 1988, he was using the number 12. In 1988, McLaren got Lotus old numbers (11 and 12), even being the 2nd in the constructor in 1987.
• In 1993 Mansell and 1994 Prost, the champions were out of F1 and Damon Hill used the number 0, and nobody used the number 1.

In 1996 started the other regulation to determined the order of the constructors, very simple and clear, would be accordingly to the constructors championship of the year before.

Here it's a good moment for use pause of our history class to talk about the number 13.

The number 13 has already of superstition the things aren't different in the motorsport.  It's believed that the number 13 was ignored even before F1, because of two race accidents that happened in 1925 and 1926, in both the drivers used the number 13, after that a lot of kinds of motorsport banned the number.
In 1925 Paul Torchy die after crash at the San Sebastian Grand Prix in Spain, and in 1926 Giulio Masetti who ended up having a fatal accident Targa Florio, in Italy.
After the number 13 had been jumped in F1, we had three drivers using it for only one race, they were Mauritz Von Strachwitz in German Grand Prix 1953, Moisés Solana (1963) and Divina Galica in British Grand Prix (1976).
In 1963 at the Mexican Grand Prix, the Mexican driver, Moisés Solana, was the only driver managed to qualify for a race with this number before 2014, he started in 11th place, was in 8th when his car broke down, on the 57th lap.
When F1 started to used fixed numbering, in 1974, they started excluding 13 again. In 1996, there was another regulation to determined the order of the constructors and again the number was ignored. Only in 2014, a driver use the number again, it was the Venezuelan driver, Pastor Maldonado, from Lotus, who left the category in 2015, since then the number has not returned.
Until this year the F2 and F3 don`t use the 13

Now, let's go back to the history.
Just in 2014 the driver would have their own number, but he rules were:

• The driver could use any number between 2 to 99, except number 1, exclusive of the champion for him to choose if they want or not to use. For example after win his first tittle Verstappen started to use on the following season.
• After the driver left the championship, the number will be available again only after 2 years. For exemple, number 5 that Vettel used will be only available in 2025.
• For junior driver in free practice and reserve driver (for a short period of time), each team has pre-determined numbers
• The number 17 is retired after Jules Bianchi's death in 2015 due to his tragic accident at the Japan Grand Prix in 2014.

But we had an interesting thing happening before the Italian Grand Prix:
As I said each team has its own nominated, consecutive numbers for FP1 rookie drivers to run with - Mercedes holding the numbers 42 or 43 for practice outings.
However, with Williams replacing Sargeant with the rookie Colapinto until the end of the season, he had to choose a number, Franco chose as his permanent race number for the rest of the season the number 43.

So Mercedes not wanting to run 42, special permission was granted for Antonelli to run with 12 during his brief FP1 experience at the Italian Grand Prix, it's also gonna be his number in the debut season next year.

This post is already long so I'll have to divide, be sure you won't want to miss the next one

So, see you soon!
Fondly, Nina