- Kimi Antonelli will keep number 12 in 2027 instead of switching to the champion’s number 1, so the grid has no number 1 for the first time in five seasons, per Motorsport.com.
- The 20-year-old Mercedes driver ties the number to his idol Ayrton Senna, to his first single-seater titles and to a wish to stay humble.
- He says number 1 has never been lucky for him, and he has a special Senna helmet ready for this weekend’s Brazilian Grand Prix.
The Youngest World Champion Sticks With the Number He Wore in Formula 4
“I’ll stay with number 12.” Antonelli said it just after he became the youngest world champion in Formula 1 history, and it settled a choice that Max Verstappen and Lando Norris both made the other way. The number 1 is reserved for the reigning champion. Norris swapped his regular number 4 for it after his title. Verstappen took it after his. Antonelli, who succeeded Norris with a third-place finish in the Mexico City Grand Prix on Sunday, declined the offer.
His first reason is personal. Number 12, he said, is “a very special number for me.” His second reason sounds like a driver who knows how fast the last few days have gone. “It’s also a way for me to stay grounded, to stay humble,” Antonelli said. Keeping 12 “allows me to have a new point where to start and to build on everything again and try to improve more.”
Humility has been a habit this season. After his Austin performance, a reporter asked how he handled the pressure at such a young age. Antonelli credited his family and the people at Mercedes before he credited himself. The same instinct shows up in the number. A new champion can put a 1 on the car. Antonelli wants a fresh starting point.
The decision leaves a gap on the grid. The 2027 field will line up without a number 1 for the first time in five seasons.
A Number With Senna on It
The number carries a lineage that runs back to a Brazilian. The 12 is a tribute to Antonelli’s idol Ayrton Senna, and it was the first number he used in single-seaters, in Formula 4.
The number then followed him up the ladder. Antonelli ran 12 when he won the Italian Formula 4 title in 2022 and the European and Middle East Formula Regional titles in 2023. He reached Formula 1 with it, and this year he used it to win his first grand prix. Senna also scored his first grand prix victory with 12. That came at the 1985 Portuguese Grand Prix, driving a Lotus in heavy rain.
Senna won the 1988 world championship with 12, and Antonelli is the first driver to win the title with that number after him. Senna added titles in 1990 and 1991.
Italy has its own piece of history in this story too. Antonelli is the first Italian to win the drivers’ championship after Alberto Ascari in 1953, and at 20 years and 68 days he beat Sebastian Vettel’s mark of 23 years and 134 days, set in 2010. Vettel had held the record for 16 years. Antonelli reached the title in his second F1 season and just five years after moving from karts to cars.
Senna’s reach went beyond Formula 1, as the story of his IndyCar test with Penske shows.
A Superstition That Survived a Title Weekend
The second reason for keeping 12 is the one Antonelli delivered with a laugh. “To be honest, I’m very superstitious and number one has never been a good number for me. Whenever I put it [on], it went extremely badly!” he said. “So that’s one more reason to stay with number 12.”
A week earlier, after Austin, he had told Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff he was going to enjoy the ride, a calm that carried the title run into Mexico City. The superstition shaped his weekend there as well. Antonelli needed only two points to be certain of the title, and Wolff said people had started congratulating him on Friday. “I kept hearing the same thing over and over again,” he said in the post-race press conference. He did not want to hear it. He feared he might jinx the result.
“Until it’s done, it’s not done,” Antonelli said. He knew he still had a race to finish well, and he found it hard with guests and fans offering their congratulations. “Knowing myself, I’m very superstitious. And I’m telling you, it’s not easy for me, especially being that superstitious!”
The weekend was not smooth in other ways. Antonelli said he had not been in the best physical shape, and a bad qualifying execution on Saturday left emotions high. He made a careful start in the race, gave up a place to eventual winner Verstappen, and then took more risks after the red flag. A move on Charles Leclerc helped him onto the podium, and third place sealed the title with four races to spare.
Then came the last lap. Antonelli was already crying, and he could not see the track. He lost 1.8 seconds to the leaders on that lap. “I was already crying, basically,” he said. “I couldn’t see clearly ahead.” He added: “I could see two Ferraris, somehow, with the tears.” He backed off, he said, as he was getting emotional and wanted to avoid a crash. “A lot of memories went through my mind in that moment,” he said.
A Photo on the Wall and a Message From Vettel
After the race Antonelli stood on the podium with Lewis Hamilton, who has seven world titles, and Verstappen, who has four. With Antonelli’s one, the three men hold 12 championships between them. Antonelli said he will hang the photo on the wall of his house. The moment, he said, showed “so much respect from two incredible drivers who have done the history of the sport.”
Vettel sent his own message, released through F1. “Congratulations, world champion. Campione del mondo. Wow!” he said. “You are curious. You listen. You learn fast.” He added a warning about the first days of a title. “I didn’t sleep properly for days, so be prepared,” Vettel said. Of his own first title, he recalled: “It was like a rush. It was impossible to reflect.” His closing advice: “great achievements might change the way people look at you, but you don’t have to change the way you look at people.”
Vettel also told him that the best part of a championship is the run of races that leads to it, and that no single race decides everything.
What Comes Next in Brazil
Antonelli plans to put his tribute on his head this weekend. “I will have a special helmet for Brazil, for Ayrton,” he said. The Brazilian Grand Prix runs from November 6 to 8 at Interlagos, with the race on Sunday, November 8. Senna won his home race at Interlagos 35 years ago, in 1991, his first victory in front of his own crowd in his eighth season of Formula 1, and a failing gearbox left him holding sixth gear. Antonelli said the design is “one of my best helmets that I’ve made, hopefully you guys, everyone, will like it.”
The celebrations come after that. “I will enjoy tonight,” Antonelli said on Sunday. “I’ll see what I will do, but definitely when I go back home after Brazil, I will push [with partying].” Then comes Las Vegas, where he said he probably will not be in the best state. “You’ve still got to enjoy all these moments!”
When the 2027 cars roll out, the grid will carry no number 1 and one number 12 that belongs to the reigning world champion. Antonelli wants 12 to be a fresh starting point, and 2027 will show what he builds on it.
