After snatching Verstappen’s title, Norris now takes away his car number

Dubai: McLaren’s Lando Norris, the newly-crowned Formula 1 World Champion, didn’t just snatch away the title from Red Bull’s Max Verstappen on Sunday. A day after winning the drivers’ championship in Abu Dhabi by just two points from the Dutchman, the British Driver also snatched the number 1 for his car from the four-time World Champion.

Norris had been sporting No 4 on his car till now, but after his title win, has decided to take away the number 1 that has been used by Verstappen for 92 races since the start of the 2022 season. To be fair to the 26-year-old McLaren driver, the No 1 is generally reserved for the world champion.

"It's tradition, it's there for a reason," Norris told Sky Sports News.  "It's there because you can go and try grab it and you can work hard to try and get it.

"All of us as a team that gets to have a role in McLaren, or my car, will get to wear that with pride. It's all my mechanics, my engineers, everyone that's part of McLaren gets to have that acknowledgement too.

"So, it's not for me, it's for them as well. It's their pride, knowing that they put a lot of work and effort into everything that they can also go 'we're number one'.

"It's not as cool when you say 'we are number four' so they will be even happier than I am!"

Since 2014, F1 drivers have been allowed to pick a number that would stick with them for their careers. In that time, Lewis Hamilton was the only World Champion to decline to run the No 1 – with the choice being given to the driver. Instead, he always stuck with his own race No 44.

Verstappen's streak of holding the number 1 continuously for four seasons was five races more than the 87 that Michael Schumacher, who had it adorn his Ferrari from the 2001 Australian Grand Prix until the 2005 Chinese Grand Prix, achieved.

However, the German driver held it for 120 Grands Prix in total, including the 1995 and 1996 F1 seasons. The 7-time F1 drivers' champion raced in an era when the title winner was automatically assigned the number 1 car.

Norris also sported a special champion’s golden helmet during his post-season testing with McLaren at the Yas Marina Circuit on Tuesday. As for Verstappen, who had number 33 on his car during his controversial championship win in Abu Dhabi in 2021, he will now be contemplating whether to return to that number or go for anything divisible by 3, his favourite number.