Should F2 and F3 drivers get to pick career numbers?
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Nicholas Latifi has chosen to race with number six for when he makes his F1 debut later this year.
I think career numbers, introduced to F1 in 2014, were one of few good changes made under the latter years of the old administration. Certainly better than, for example, double points, which came in the same season and were scrapped after a single appearance…
Is it time we expanded them into the lower categories? Give drivers the chance to carry the same numbers up through F2 and even F3? Or should it be confined to F1?
It would be nice if they could have career numbers but I think going as far as F3 wouldn’t be practical with 99 numbers and drivers dropping out and new ones joining from other series.
With Anthoine Hubert’s number taken out of circulation I say this moment would have been good to introduce them to F2. The end of previous year was exception but generally team-mates use consecutive numbers and at that moment #18 has also been taken out since previous team uses 16 and 17 which would mean next two available numbers are 18 and 20.
We could see some drivers building story on their numbers on their road to the higher class. In bike racing, Marc Marquez was #93 already in when he won 125cc and Moto2 titles.
The following differences to F1 should be applied though.
– The number is locked only until the first race of the next season
– If the championship is decided before the final race, the champion may swap to #1 immediatelyI think this is a good idea with no downsides. As Bleu has said, drivers can earn equity with numbers which helps marketing and branding. If another driver has your number when moving up a level then you’d have to change – sounds reasonable.
I had the same thought and contacted F2 directly. I did get a response and they have considered this but are unable to do it.
The only reason they cant is that in Monaco qualifying, they split the cars into 2 sessions. They run even numbers in 1 and odd numbers in the other. The system is quite inflexible so wouldn’t allow any other way of doing it.
I suggested they get around it by listing the numbers in order and then finding the 12th number and do 1 session for that number and below, and a 2nd session for car numbers higher than that. It doesn’t allow them to do that annoyingly.
I agree it would’ve been nice to see and have drivers keep the same number all the way through.
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