SEVEN-TIME Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton has revealed why he drives with the No44 on his car.
Hamilton has stuck with the same number ever since F1 drivers were first allowed to pick their digits in 2014.
That’s despite having the chance to switch to No1 on six different occasions.
The reigning champion from the previous season is reserved No1 should they choose to take it.
But Hamilton has never done so, instead always sticking with the perhaps unusual choice of No44.
Although there is a very personal reason as to why he dons that number year in, year out.
He revealed to PETRONAS Motorsports: “When I started racing when I was eight, the number plate on my dad’s car – he had this red Cavalier – was F44.
“So he used 44 – it was his idea. And then it became the family lucky number.”
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He is so attached to the number Mercedes quashed rumours of Hamilton from F1 by tweeting: “No44 is back.”
Talk had been rife that the Brit was mulling retirement following the dramatic finale to the 2021 season, where he lost out on a record eighth title to Max Verstappen in hugely controversial circumstances.
Now though he is set to be behind the wheel for Mercedes when the F1 2022 calendar gets underway in Bahrain on March 20.
But Hamilton is not the only F1 driver with personal reasons for their choice of numbers.
Verstappen is set to race with No1 this season, but was No33 in the past because his favourite number is three, according to Sportscasting.
Although when the No3 was taken upon his entry to F1 Verstappen simply chose to add another to make No33.
Elsewhere Sebastien Vettel opts for the No5 because it’s the same number he had during a successful go-karting season in 2001.
And Lance Stroll races with No18 because it was the number he had when he won the F3 and F4 titles.
