The FIA has chosen a Friday night to put out its official entry list for 2014 – odd timing – and there are some odd things included on the list, not least the company name of McLaren which is listed as being Vodafone McLaren Mercedes Ltd, when in reality the team is called McLaren Racing Ltd. Similarly Lotus has the wrong company name as this should be Lotus F1 Team Ltd rather than Lotus Renault F1 Team Ltd. I have checked with Companies House this evening to make sure this is right and I guess that it is simply down to the FIA having some finger trouble. As a result I have left out the company names to help avoid confusion. Having said that Mercedes’s team name is listed as Mercedes GP Petronas F1, when the team was known last year as Mercedes AMG Petronas. We will have to see whether this is also an error, or whether the team name has actually changed.
It is worth noting that Lotus and Marussia are both “subject to confirmation” and that Sebastian Vettel’s number will be number 1 as long as he is the World Champion but will change to 5 when he no longer holds the title.
One interesting point is that Nico Hulkenberg has chosen 27, which was the number that Jules Bianchi wanted and that Pastor Maldonado has chosen number 13, a number that has not been used in the sport for decades.
The only other point of note, other than the numbers, is that Max Chilton has been confirmed as the second driver at Marussia.
1 Sebastian Vettel (D) * Infiniti Red Bull Racing (A) Red Bull-Renault
3 Daniel Ricciardo (AUS) Infiniti Red Bull Racing (A) Red Bull-Renault
44 Lewis Hamilton (GB) Mercedes GP Petronas F1 Mercedes
6 Nico Rosberg (D) Mercedes GP Petronas F1 Mercedes
14 Fernando Alonso (E) Scuderia Ferrari (I) Ferrari
7 Kimi Raikkonen (SF) Scuderia Ferrari (I) Ferrari
8 Romain Grosjean (F) Lotus F1 Team (GB) Lotus-Renault **
13 Pastor Maldonado (YV) Lotus F1 Team (GB) Lotus-Renault **
22 Jenson Button (GB) McLaren Mercedes (GB) McLaren-Mercedes
20 Kevin Magnussen (DK) McLaren Mercedes (GB) McLaren-Mercedes
27 Nico Hulkenberg (D) Sahara Force India F1 (IND) Force India-Mercedes
11 Sergio Perez (MEX) Sahara Force India F1 (IND) Force India-Mercedes
99 Adrian Sutil (D) Sauber F1 Team (CH) Sauber-Ferrari
21 Esteban Gutierrez (MEX) Sauber F1 Team (CH) Sauber-Ferrari
25 Jean-‐Eric Vergne (F) Scuderia Toro Rosso (I) Toro Rosso-Renault
26 Daniil Kvyat (RUS) Scuderia Toro Rosso (I) Toro Rosso-Renault
19 Felipe Massa (BR) Williams Team F1 (GB) Williams-Mercedes
77 Valtteri Bottas (SF) Williams Team F1 (GB) Williams-Mercedes
17 Jules Bianchi (F) Marussia F1 Team (RUS) Marussia-Ferrari **
TBA Max Chilton (GB) Marussia F1 Team (RUS) Marussia-Ferrari **
TBA TBA Caterham F1 Team (MAL) Caterham-Renault
TBA TBA Caterham F1 Team (MAL) Caterham-Renault
joeblogsf1 
If it helps, the 2014 official entry list appeared on the official FIA website earlier today, but it was actually the 2013 entry list.
Not a lot of attention being paid at everyone’s favourite neighbourhood motorsport federation.
How hard can it be to get the names right? Sometimes they act as if they are running a bake sale (not dissing bake sales)…
Oh great, Maldonado has chosen 13. This isn’t going to help prove that the number isn’t unlucky.
Pastor went with 13 to have something to blame if 2014 does not go well!
It almost looks like a self deprecating joke…
27 will come in very handy for hulk when he’s at Ferrari with kimi next year.
Any more on McLaren courting of Fernando Joe?
Indeed, maybe he’s pressing his case to Ferrari, having taken the number from Jules.. who didn’t pick 28 either (looks like he wanted a 7). I was wrong about Sutil and Hulk – Sutil goes for the 99 while Hulk takes the conventional iconic number! Gutierrez took one more anonymous, 21. If Chilton is confirmed, surely he finished above Kvyat and Magnussen last year? Unless that deadline has passed, and the 3 late entry drivers pick last.
Would be interesting to know why certain drivers picked their numbers.
‘5’ makes one think of Mansell, and ’27’ Gilles – surprised Hulkenberg got it, maybe the likes of Alonso want to be ‘their own man’ – his number ’14’ was Fittipaldi’s Copersucar number in ’78. Kimi has got Hunt’s number 7 – I assume he was not thinking of Stirling Moss. ’44’ and ’77’ are odd choices – must be some sort of reasoning behind them?
The whole exercise seems pretty silly – why not simply give the driver the number that corresponds to his finishing position the previous year?
I think some choices are connected to numbers they used in karting – eg 14 for Alonso and 44 for Hamilton, or numbers they used when winning championships – eg Magnussen used the 20 in FR3.5 last year, Button had the 22 in 2009 and Vettel the 5 in 2010 when he first won the WDC.
I knew none of that – thanks.
77 is for Bo77tas, clever marketing\hashtag. 22 is number from the year that Button won championship, but could be used as Bu22on as marketing\hashtag with careful selection of fonts. I assume 44 for Hamilton because he thinks he is twice as good as Button? 7 and 14 were both for luck. 13 we assume is oversized ego or something to blame for poor drives. 6 for his dads winning number. Wonder why no one went for 69, have to assume it was Kimi’s second choice! Obvious why no one selected number 2, no one in F1 wants to be second in anything or be defined by the other meaning of number two. Might as well drop that from the selection!
I had the same thought about #2- no-one wants to be that guy
Pity they restricted it to 2-99, otherwise there would be someone who goes 00, or triple digits
00? Nobody wants Dick Dastardly’s luck…
I do not believe that the number is available
14 wasn’t for luck – it was Fernando’s number throughout his early (karting etc.) career.
I saw some fluff somewhere about Alonso taking it as his lucky number because he won his first kart race driving kart number 14 on the 14th of July or something.
Kimi’s reasoning for number 7 (from ferrari.com):
“It’s the number I already had last year and I saw no reason to change it. I like it which is good enough isn’t it?”
Typical Kimi… 😉
Beautiful !
Love Kimi’s DIGAF attitude.
As well as being Seb Vet’s 2010 championship number, I believe the number 5 car has won more championships than any other, except no.1. Other car no. 5 champions include Alonso, D. Hill, Schumi, Nige, Piquet (twice), Andretti & Fittipaldi. Vettel, as a keen student of F1 history, is no doubt well aware of this heritage.
Couple of interesting ones. “Red 5” I wonder. “Lucky 7”.
Marussia still only half serious about competing then
Ok, Salute Nico then! Do like the comments attributed to Kimi about 7: “I had it last year and saw no reason to change it.” 🙂
I wonder whether Lewis (or his marketing people, or his sponsors) realize that his number (44) won’t win him many friends in China / HK / etc.?
frankly it beggars belief he chose that numbering considering he chose to sign a management that ensures to maximize your potential commercial value. But then this blog post is about the incompetence of formula 1 when it comes to communicating the sport to the outside world.
…and Fernando as well.
I dunno, I’d rather drivers just picked a number that they liked for whatever reason (like Ricciardo picking no. 3) than embarking on some detailed analysis to find the number which is least likely to piss anyone off (for whatever spurious reasons) and is therefore most marketable.
That’d be a bit soulless.
Hi Joe,
Any idea why Lotus and Marussia are still subject to confirmation?
+1
Ricciardo choose 3 as it was his number from his early karting days, and also because he was a fan of Dale Earnhardt.
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The car numbering we had before the last change wasn’t too bad for hat sales. If a driver did well but didn’t win the championship he’d have the same number the next year. Nigel Mansell is famous for being red five but didn’t he also have 27 when he drove for Ferrari? The driver is in car number 1 rather than the car is driven by driver number 1.
Pastor Maldonado’s choice is probably apt. As in – avoid!!!
Are these numbers set in stone so that drivers are “doomed” to have them for their entire racing life? Or could they change them again in a new season? Suppose Alonso or Hamilton have bad luck with their current number on 2014 and want to change it for the 2015 season? Could they do it, or are they forbidden to do so?
No idea
Given Joe & Optimaximal’s comments re the FIA press office’s attention to detail, this probably comes with a health warning, but: http://www.fia.com/formula-one-regulation-changes says “Drivers will be asked to choose their race number, between 2 and 99, for the duration of their career in the FIA Formula One World Championship”
I have no news about any of this, but I’d be amazed if drivers were “sentenced” to a number for life. The whole point is to *permit* drivers to have a stable number, not to force them to. While none of this might be decided yet, I expect a driver will be permitted to change to any available number.
I have no guess about (a) whether they will be able to do this at any time vs. only during a specified annual time window, and (b) whether an ex-driver retains the right to his number for a year or two before it is up for grabs (to allow for a Hulk-like hiatus without losing one’s number).
Small gripe, we dropped the SF nationality code a few decades ago for FIN. Or FI for short.
I didn’t.
well played sir, well played
Hulk may have beaten Bianchi to the number, but it will be Bianchi who gets the drive with Ferrari !
Thanks Luca for that sneak preview…
27 is more associated with Williams and Alan Jones. Patrick Neve ran 27 on the Belle Vue / Saudi March run by Frank in 1977, then AJ ran with 27 for three full seasons including winning the championship in 1980. He took 1, and 27 passed to Villeneuve, who only used for 1 and a bit seasons until his death at Zolder, then stand-in Tambay ran, and won, with 27.
Perceptions? 27 is a Williams number for me as it was when Patrick Head’s FW06 and FW07 brought Frank from the phone box to the top. I guess all your followers under 30 will stick with Villeneuve for 27.
Am you’re right but that is not how the world sees it!
Jean Alesi had number 27 from 92 to 95 at Ferrari, Prost in 91, Mansell in 89, Alboreto from 84 to 88. Whilst it wasn’t a successful number for la Scuderia, it is very much associated with Ferrari as far as I can see.
Anyway, there’s still some way to go before Hulkenberg moves to Ferrari.
Also, Senna won the WDC with 27 in 1990. Surprised no-one went for 12 (Senna’s no. for his 1st WDC in ’88)
Perhaps Massa’s number is a tribute to Senna.
Given that generally between 2 and 4 drivers each year move on from F1 each year, has the FIA stated how long after the retirement of a driver, their number will be unusable for by a new driver? If permanently, this system will become unworkable in about 20 to 25 years. Additionally, do backup drivers also have chosen (but not published yet) numbers in case they are called up to replace an ill / injured driver?
No, not that I have heard.
They’re not gonna give numbers to a driver for life. No way… unless maybe if a guy is like Jimmy Clark, Sir Jackie or Michael, they may (or may not) have a way to retire a number for somebody who’s extra-special. But other than that, the only question is whether a number is up for grabs as soon as a guy isn’t on a team roster vs. perhaps providing a year or two grace period during which a driver can come and go without losing his number (the Hulkenberg Rule?). Anything more than that would be nuts…
Of course, any driver who is “extra-special” will mainly be seen with the number 1 on his car anyway.
Vettel is only five races away from having more race starts as number 1 than as any other number from 2-99.
Retire a number if the driver dies while racing – with some luck and the continued work of the FIA, the teams and the GPDA, hopefully F1 will never have to.
4 is the unlucky number in China. Hamilton has two of them. Grojean is looking good with 8.
Double negative = a positive 😉
ps. Dunno if it works like that in China…
13 is not an unlucky number in many countries. Having said that, despite Maldonado’s millions, (not so many in F1 terms) I wouldn’t be surprised, given the number of defections from Lotus, that they will not be around in 2015 in their current guise.
Since Colin Chapman founded Lotus, they have always been on, if not over the edge.
This team has no ljnk to Colin Chapman and Team Lotus.
If Ferrari is still interested in Bianchi, they won’t be too happy with his choice for n. 17…
Bianchi tried to get the 27, but Hulkenberg got priority as he finished higher in the championship last year.
exactement Jean-Louis. it is Enzo F. who described this number to be unlucky at least during his reign and although he asked the FIA to retire n.27 in memoriam of G.V. at the end of the 1982 season…, he was told that this was not possible no matter the circustances.
Me-Shell, 17 is the 13 for Italy not only Enzo.
Any idea how they decided which driver got the 27 in the end? Drawing straws?
Any name registered at companies house can be different to your trading name, and one supposes, different to the name you choose to race under.
For instance are Ferrari Formula One Team registered in the UK at Companies House?
As for the driver numbers, what a great way to inject superstition and magic numbers into the equation…
No.
Nobody picked #2 out of respect for Mark Webber.
Genius!!!
But sadly unnoticed down this end of the thread
Say Joe, do you know it the FIA made the number 69 available, and if it was, care to speculate as to why nobody chose such a universally loved number? 😆
No one picked it
And I suspect grown men don’t want their careers linked to, or even defined but an immature sexual reference.
Nicky Hayden, 2006 MotoGP World Champion, might just disagree with you there.
What if someone picks a number, say 9, is dropped by his tram at the end of the year so someone else then takes that number for the following season, only for the original “owner” to come back a couple of years later in the manner of Raikkonen (or, in a more extreme case, Jan Lammers)? Who then gets the 9?
It is highly likely that there will be some kind of hiatus on the re-use of a number. Perhaps 2 years perhaps longer. That way this wouldn’t happen. Also from a more commercial point of view a new driver is not going to pick a number that has been recently used as they will want to build their own “brand” and so the likelihood is that this problem won’t happen for 10 years of more.
If they keep this system in place then Jody Schekter and Damon Hill will be the only two F1 drivers to carry the number 0.
Also, has Vettel reserved a number to use if / when he relinquishes 1?
Vettel has reserved #5 from his karting days and first WDC.
Joe, Sorry for the off topic question. Re Vettel at Malaysia 2013, is there nothing that could have been done from the pitwall or garage to force a compliance with the team order to not overtake Webber? Or at least allow Webber to re-take? There would be repercussions for sure but now CH has no respect from one of his drivers. How can a team function like that? I suppose success papers over a lot of cracks. Thanks
There was lots of discussion on this blog at the time, mainly here :
https://joesaward.wordpress.com/2013/03/25/what-sebastian-vettel-might-learn-from-shakespeare/
and here :
https://joesaward.wordpress.com/2013/03/28/forgiving-and-forgetting/
The short answer is no.
The team’s options in that situation are : 1) convince Vettel to let Webber through; 2) allow Webber off the leash and hope he can win a straight fight without both cars using up their tyres/fuel before the finish; 3) bluff and attempt to convince Vettel that he needs to come in for fresh tyres or repairs to the car.
There’s a slightly more sinister option 4 which I’m not entirely sure could even be managed, but in the interests of amusing speculation here goes : 4) it may be possible to breach parc fermé regulations at the end of the race in some very minor way in order to get a steward imposed time (rather than position) penalty – though I’m not entirely sure how that could be acheived – which would require a big enough gap to rival cars behind. As it was, Hamilton and Rosberg finished much too close and a 20 second penalty (the norm for an unserved drive-through in the final laps of the race) would have put Vettel 4th.
Pre-2003 pit-to-car telemetry was legal, so race engineers could control engine maps and gearbox settings – meaning it would have been possible for the team to simple turn down the offender’s engine and in order to make their point.
You know the Beatles have split up, don’t you? Why on earth are you bringing that up again now and with this article?
Half of them are dead! Though presumably he doesn’t know that either…
Dead to you maybe, but not to me…
I just hope you can see the numbers on the cars
Exactly right.
I’m not big on having too many rules, but I think they should also have their number on helmet top, right where the camera can see it… (am tired of memorizing driving gloves…)
I continue to be surprised that none of the drivers have specifically had a helmet designed to take full advantage of that camera angle – the MotoGP guys have been putting writing across the lower back / buttocks of their leathers for years, knowing that the main onboard camera is right behind them.