List of Formula One driver numbers
Wikimedia list article
In Formula One, each car is numbered. Since the inaugural Formula One World Championship in 1950, several numbering systems have been used. This list covers the numbers used by drivers since the start of the 2014 Formula One season, when drivers have been allowed to choose a number that they would carry throughout their career.
History
1950–1973
From 1950 to 1973, driver numbers were allocated by the organisers of each event, with no consistent method deployed across events.
1974–1995
It was not until 1974, following a short trial the previous year, when a consistent race-to-race numbering system was first implemented in Formula One. The reigning World Champion received number 1, their teammate took number 2, and numbers 3 and 4 and beyond were assigned to teams based on the 1973 Constructors' Championship results. These assigned numbers were supposed to stay with their teams as long as they were part of Formula One or until they ran the reigning World Drivers' Champion, in which case they would swap numbers with the team previously running numbers 1 and 2. In the event of the drivers' champion not returning, no swap took place, and either number 0 (Damon Hill in 1993 and 1994) or number 1 (Ronnie Peterson in 1974 and John Watson in one 1985 race) was exceptionally used.
This system was dropped in 1996. Some traditional numbers of Formula One teams during this period are listed below.
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This entry incorporates text from “List of Formula One driver numbers” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.