Lando Norris will run the No.1 on his car in 2026 after winning this year’s drivers’ championship at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
The reigning champion has traditionally run the No.1 on their car, but a change in 2014 to allocate drivers with career-long numbers meant there was an option to stick with the number chosen by the driver at the start of their F1 career.
Lewis Hamilton opted to continue to use No.44 throughout his championship winning years (with the exception of occasional one-off practice sessions with No.1) while Max Verstappen has proudly run the No.1 for the last four seasons after winning the title four times in a row.
In an interview with Sky Sports on Monday, Norris said he planned to switch from No.4 to No.1 next year – mainly to symbolize the efforts of his mechanics and engineers this year.
“It’s tradition,” Norris said. “It’s there for a reason. It’s there because you can go and try grab it and you can work hard to try and get it.
“All of us as a team that gets to have a role in McLaren, or my car, will get to wear that with pride. It’s all my mechanics, my engineers, everyone that’s part of McLaren gets to have that acknowledgement too.
“So it’s not for me, it’s for them as well. It’s their pride, knowing that they put a lot of work and effort into everything that they can also go ‘we’re number one’. It’s not as cool when you say ‘we are number four’ so they will be even happier than I am!”
Norris revealed that he needed to make a decision on which number to run the day after his title success in Abu Dhabi and he believes it will be on his car as early as Tuesday’s Pirelli tyre test in Abu Dhabi.
Verstappen recently said he wants to switch to No.3 next year, but is awaiting confirmation from the FIA that he will be able to change from No.33, which he used for the first seven years of his F1 career before becoming champion.
The Red Bull driver said he preferred No.3 to No.33, but No.3 was taken by Daniel Ricciardo when Verstappen made his debut in 2015.
Prior to the introduction of career numbers in 2014, the reigning champion would always use No.1 with his teammate running No.2. The rest of the cars on the grid would be allocated in ascending order based on where the team finished in the constructors’ championship.
Between 1974 and 1995 teams tended use the same numbers each year, although number pairings would occasionally switch between constructors.
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For example, Ferrari used No.11 and No.12 between 1974 and 1979 before Jody Scheckter won the title with the team and ran No.1 in 1980 and Lotus took over No.11 and No.12.
Ferrari then famously ran No.27 and No.28 between 1981 and 1995, with the exception of 1990 when reigning champion Alain Prost joined the team from McLaren and brought No.1 and No.2 with him.
Prior to 1974 numbers were allocated by race promoters at each event.
