{"id":191798,"date":"2025-12-19T13:28:14","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T13:28:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/191798\/"},"modified":"2025-12-19T13:28:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T13:28:14","slug":"max-verstappen-to-use-no-3-after-daniel-ricciardo-approval-sources","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/191798\/","title":{"rendered":"Max Verstappen to use No. 3 after Daniel Ricciardo approval – sources"},"content":{"rendered":"

Max Verstappen<\/a> will race with the No. 3 formerly belonging to Daniel Ricciardo<\/a> in 2026, a deviation from his old career racing number of 33.<\/p>\n

Sources have told ESPN Verstappen sought out Ricciardo for permission to use the number.<\/p>\n

Formula 1’s rules mean drivers race with a specific number they choose to carry with them for their whole career.<\/p>\n

The rules also state that a number stays assigned to a driver until it has been inactive for two seasons, meaning Verstappen was free to move on from 33.<\/p>\n

Max Verstappen will take the No. 3 that formerly belonged to Daniel Ricciardo next season.\u00a0Mark Thompson\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

As Ricciardo’s last race was the 2024 Singapore Grand Prix, it still was not eligible to use under the rules until the two had spoken.<\/p>\n

After the discussion Ricciardo then gave his permission for the number to be used early.<\/p>\n

Verstappen joked last year that he had wanted to race with No. 69, but had been talked around by his father Jos.<\/p>\n

Editor’s Picks<\/p>\n

2 Related<\/p>\n

Since 2022, Verstappen raced with the No. 1 on his car as world champion, but Lando Norris<\/a> will do so in 2026 having won the title in Abu Dhabi.<\/p>\n

Champions have the option to take number one — Verstappen did so, but Lewis Hamilton<\/a> kept his No. 44 when he was champion.<\/p>\n

Ricciardo raced with the No. 3 when teammates with Verstappen between 2016 and 2018 and right through until his final race, the 2024 Singapore Grand Prix.<\/p>\n

Ricciardo said in the aftermath of his abrupt departure that Verstappen was one of the few drivers to reach out to check how he was doing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Max Verstappen will race with the No. 3 formerly belonging to Daniel Ricciardo in 2026, a deviation from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191799,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213],"class_list":{"0":"post-191798","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-new-zealand","9":"tag-newzealand","10":"tag-nz","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191798\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}