F1 News
The story behind Yuki Tsunoda's choice of starting number
- GPblog.com
Since the start of the 2014 F1 season, drivers have been allowed to choose their own starting number. A trend can be seen in the numbers chosen from the start. Namely, people are rather enamoured with double numbers. Yuki Tsunoda also continues this trend.
At the AlphaTauri car unveiling he explained why: “My number when I was racing in karting was 11, but in F1 that’s already taken by Sergio Perez. So, I doubled it to become 22, which I also liked because it was the number of Jenson Button – a driver I respect a lot – when he won the Formula 1 World Championship in 2009. It’s also a number used by Japanese driver Takuma Sato.”
Apart from that, 22 is also the number that Lewis Hamilton won his first world title with. It was just not a self-chosen number at the time. McLaren drove with the number 22 and 23 in 2008 after being disqualified in 2007 due to the 'spygate' scandal. By the way, in 2014 Hamilton did choose another double number: the now-iconic 44.
Marketing and/or superstition
This iconic nature of these numbers probably also contributes to their popularity. After all, Max Verstappen's 33 or Valtteri Bottas' 77 are easy to remember. Yet it will also be largely superstition. Or could it be a coincidence that 66, which has a negative connotation in Christian circles, is the only double number that has never been chosen?
The only driver who really seemed to disregard superstition was Pastor Maldonado, who voluntarily drove with the number 13 for years. A number that was deliberately skipped by the teams before the introduction of this system. The team that finished sixth in the Constructors' Championship drove the following year with numbers 11 and 12, the team that finished seventh with numbers 14 and 15.