Jack Doohan will use the same career number as one of his racing heroes when he makes his grand prix debut next year.
He has chosen to take over the number seven, last used by Kimi Raikkonen, when he arrives in F1 with Alpine next year.
“I really wanted to go with a number that I raced with before, something that had meaning for me,” he said in a video released by Alpine. “I raced with number seven in 2019.”
Doohan used the number that year when he drove for Double R, a Formula 3 team founded by Raikkonen and his manager Steve Robertson, in Euroformula Open.
“Also one of my idols, a super special person and driver, Kimi Raikkonen, also drove with that number,” Doohan added. “I’m really looking forward to continuing it on and make it my own and getting some luck from number seven.”
Raikkonen’s number became available for use at the beginning of this year as he retired at the end of the 2021 season.
The Finnish world champion first used the number when it was allocated to him in 2013, the final year before F1 first introduced permanent career numbers. At the time Raikkonen drove for Lotus, which was later taken over by Renault and rebranded as Alpine.
When F1 first gave drivers the opportunity to choose a permanent number, Raikkonen originally considered a change. “There was a chance that I’d take six because I won the championship with it,” he said. “But I knew that [Nico] Rosberg wanted it because his father won the championship with it so I just kept what I had.”
Raikkonen started 176 races as number seven, the most of any driver, and more than half of his 349 career starts.
