User:Twirlypen/sandbox1

List of Formula One career driver numbers

History

The Formula One World Championship had, since its creation, assigned numbers to drivers partially based off of their team's final standing the preceding year, with the Driver's champion receiving #1 and his team being assigned the next set of lowest numbers. Receiving the following lowest set of numbers for their drivers were the Constructors champion, if they did not employ the Driver's champion the preceding year. The remaining sets of numbers followed the rest of the teams on the final Constructor's standings for the previous season, with that team's higher scoring driver receiving the lowest number allotted to them. New teams entering the Championship would be allocated the final sets of numbers, while new drivers entering mid-season, regardless of the team they joined, often received higher numbers outside of the ones previously allocated to the team.

New selection process

In 2014, rule changes allowed drivers to select their own numbers, which they would use for the duration of their career in Formula One. For consistant defining purposes, the rules outlined by the FIA considered a driver's career to be over once they had not driven in any Grand Prix session in any portion of the calendar for two consecutive seasons. At this point, their career number would be reallocated into the selection pool for a new driver to elect to use. Drivers were permitted to select any number between 2 and 99, with 1 being reserved for the season champion, should s/he elect to use it the following season as defenders of the Driver's Championship title.

The initial selection process began in December 2013. All drivers returning for 2014 season were contacted directly, to dissuade against team influence, for a list of first, second, and third number preferences. Any conflicts were settled based off of the 2013 final standings for the Driver's Championship. Thus, in essence, Sebastian Vettel had first choice, while Max Chilton was at the bottom of the initial queue as the lowest classified driver to return in 2014. All three of Jules Bianchi's preferences (7, 77, 27) were ultimately selected by other drivers, so he had to select again. Following Chilton, new drivers for the 2014 season were able to select a number on a first-come, first-served basis.

Many drivers selected numbers for sentimental or historical reasons. Vettel chose № 5 because his boyhood idol, Michael Schumacher, used it when he won his first championship in 1994, while Lewis Hamilton chose № 44 because that was his number in his karting days as a youth. Others simply picked a number based off of chance, such as Kimi Räikkönen selecting № 7 because he "had that number last year [2013] and saw no reason to change it".

Formula One driver numbers

The following lists all Formula One driver numbers in use, current up to the 2024 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix:

No.	Driver	Current team	Earliest year available	Notes
1	Reserved for Champion	N/A	2017	Champion elected to retain number
3	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull	2020
4	Max Chilton	Last raced in 2014	2017
5	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	2020
6	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	2019
7	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	2019
8	Romain Grosjean	Haas	2019
9	Marcus Ericsson	Sauber	2019
10	Kamui Kobayashi	Last raced in 2014	2017
11	Sergio Pérez	Force India	2019
12	Felipe Nasr	Sauber	2019
13	Pastor Maldonado	Last raced in 2015	2018
14	Fernando Alonso	McLaren	2020
17	Jules Bianchi	Last raced in 2014	—	Retired by FIA following Bianchi's death in 2015
19	Felipe Massa	Williams	2019
20	Kevin Magnussen	Renault	2019
21	Esteban Gutiérrez	Haas	2019
22	Jenson Button	McLaren	2019
25	Jean-Éric Vergne	Last raced in 2014	2017	Currently in Formula E
26	Daniil Kvyat	Red Bull	2019
27	Nico Hülkenberg	Force India	2020
28	Will Stevens	Last raced in 2015	2018	Currently in World Endurance Championship
30	Jolyon Palmer	Renault	2019
33	Max Verstappen	Toro Rosso	2019
44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	2021	Reigning season champion
53	Alexander Rossi	Last raced in 2015	2018	Currently in Indycar
55	Carlos Sainz, Jr.	Toro Rosso	2018
77	Valteri Bottas	Williams	2019
88	Rio Haryanto	Manor	2019
94	Pascal Wehrlein	Manor	2019
98	Roberto Merhi	Last raced in 2015	2018
99	Adrian Sutil	Last raced in 2014	2017
Numbers are released for reselection after two consecutive whole seasons a driver does not race in Formula One.
Sources:

Team practice and testing numbers

In addition to drivers selecting their own numbers, teams are also issued two additional numbers to use for practice and testing sessions. Since these numbers are team assigned, they are not counted as career driver numbers and are omitted from the above table. An example of this is when Alexander Rossi was assigned #45 practicing for Caterham F1 and #42 practicing for Marussia F1 in the 2014 season, while selecting #53 upon joining Marussia as a race driver midway through the 2015 season. Another example is when Felipe Nasr practiced for Williams in 2014 and was assigned #40, however once he became a full time driver for Sauber in 2015, he chose #12. Further, one-off drivers also do not select their own numbers. André Lotterer and Will Stevens, one-off entries for Caterham in 2014, used the team numbers of #45 and #46, even though they actually raced in a Grand Prix. Stevens ultimately elected #28 for himself as a Marussia full time driver in 2015.