Vettel and Raikkonen numbers taken over in F1 2025 entry list confirmation

The FIA’s F1 2025 entry list has shown two recent World Champions will have their driver numbers used by fresh-faced rookies next season.

The FIA has published the entry list for the F1 2025 season, revealing the latest details lodged with the governing body by the teams before the two-week winter shutdown begins.

Gabriel Bartoleto and Jack Doohan choose World Champion numbers

The official entry list shows that two recently used F1 World Champion’s numbers will be back on the grid in 2025.

Gabriel Bartoleto, who joins the grid with Sauber, has chosen the number 5, as last used by Sebastian Vettel in 2022.

He raced with the number 5 on his Trident in Formula 3 in 2023, en route to the title.

Jack Doohan, who will race with Alpine, has chosen the number 7 as last used by Kimi Raikkonen in 2021.

“I really wanted to go with a number that I raced with before, something that had meaning for me,” he said in November.

Doohan raced with the number 7 in 2019, when he drove for Raikkonen’s Double R team in Euroformula Open.

“Also one of my idols, a super special person and driver, Kimi Raikkonen, also drove with that number,” Doohan explained.

“I’m really looking forward to continuing it on and make it my own and getting some luck from number seven.”

Mercedes’ rookie Kimi Antonelli has picked the number 12, which last appeared in Formula 1 in 2016 when it was used by Brazilian racer Felipe Nasr.

Ollie Bearman, who raced with the temporary number 38 with Ferrari in Saudi Arabia before being assigned the number 50 with Haas in his appearances in Azerbaijan and Brazil, has chosen the number 87 as his permanent race number as his career begins properly at the Australian Grand Prix in three months’ time.

F1 driver numbers were introduced in 2014, giving drivers the chance to become permanently associated with a number during their career.

After a driver has left the sport behind for two full, consecutive seasons, their number is entered back into the pool for use by new arrivals.

Permitted numbers are between numbers 2 and 99, with the number 1 reserved for use by the reigning World Champion. The number 17 has also been taken out of rotation, with the FIA opting to retire the number following the death of Jules Bianchi in 2015.

The French driver raced with the number 17 in 2014, the year in which he suffered his eventually fatal injuries in that season’s Japanese Grand Prix.

More on the FIA and Formula 1’s governance

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The F1 entry list confirms Racing Bulls rename

The FIA official entry list also shows that the VCARB team has been registered under the team name Racing Bulls for 2025.

In 2024, the newly-revamped VCARB squad raced as Visa Cash App RB, with the ‘RB’ letters officially not standing for anything. However, the company name in Italy was registered as Racing Bulls S.p.A.

For next season, the matter has been simplified as the RB now does officially stand for Racing Bulls with the team now leaning into this identity.

“We’ve been struggling, to a certain extent, with making it clear to people what the team name is,” Bayer told the media, including PlanetF1.com, over the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix weekend.

“And you’ve seen so many versions and it’s something that, as Laurent [Mekies, team principal] said, in January, it all happened within weeks and we’ve been probably rushing a couple of the things.

“But now, what we see ultimately, is that people are referring to us as Visa Cash App Racing Bulls. Racing Bulls is something which anyway is our company name.

“And certainly I’ve seen it in the German, Austrian, Italian, French media being used mostly actually, and people struggling with the RB thing alone, because some of them have been mixing them up with Red Bull. Others didn’t actually really know what it stands for.

“So that’s why we decided to clarify that and basically what you will see in the future is Visa Cash App Racing Bulls and VCARB as an abbreviation.”

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