Just a day after winning his first Formula One world championship, Lando Norris faced a big decision for the 2026 season: Keep the No. 4 on his car that he\u2019s used since his debut in 2019 or swap for No. 1, which is reserved for the reigning world champion.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s officially decided to make the change to No. 1. Max Verstappen has used this car number since he won his first title in 2021, keeping it through four consecutive seasons. He came up two points short of tying Norris this season after winning the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on Sunday. Lewis Hamilton, who has seven world championships (four consecutive) to his name, opted against using the world champion number, sticking with his well-known No. 44.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s tradition. It\u2019s there for a reason. It\u2019s there because you can go and try grab it and you can work hard to try and get it,\u201d Norris explained to Sky Sports about making the change, adding. \u201cI think all of us as a team that gets to have a role in McLaren, in my car, will get to wear that with pride. It\u2019s all my mechanics, my engineers, everyone that\u2019s part of McLaren gets to have that acknowledgement too.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo it\u2019s not for me, it\u2019s for them as well. It\u2019s their pride. It\u2019s knowing that they put a lot of work and effort into everything that they also get to go \u2018We\u2019re No. 1.\u2019 It\u2019s not as cool when you wear No. 4. So I think they\u2019ll be even happier than I am.\u201d<\/p>\n
Drivers have been allowed to pick their numbers to use throughout their F1 careers since 2014 to help fans better identify their drivers and improve driver branding potential.<\/p>\n
While Verstappen used No. 33 before winning his world championships, it has not been announced whether he will revert to that number or apply for a new one. At the Nov. 14 F1 commission meeting about the 2026 regulations, \u201cit was agreed that a proposal for drivers to change their numbers during their career would be permitted.\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked after the Las Vegas Grand Prix about whether he\u2019d go back to No. 33 or if he was considering changing to No. 3, which Daniel Ricciardo previously raced with, Verstappen said, \u201cI\u2019m considering a lot of options at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n
No. 1 was automatically assigned to the defending world champion before the 2014 season, when F1 introduced permanent driver numbers that follow a driver throughout their career. Norris becomes only the third driver to use No. 1 since the permanent number system was implemented, following Vettel in 2014 and Verstappen since 2022.<\/p>\n
The No. 4 will remain unavailable to other drivers while Norris continues his F1 career, as drivers retain the rights to their chosen numbers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Just a day after winning his first Formula One world championship, Lando Norris faced a big decision for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":333260,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,12716,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-333259","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-f1","11":"tag-formula-1","12":"tag-formula1","13":"tag-motorsports","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333259\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/333260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}