F1 driver that chooses race number in honor of Kimi Raikkonen

F1 driver that chooses race number in honor of Kimi Raikkonen. Jack Doohan has chosen his race number in honor of Kimi Raikkonen.

Jack Doohan has chosen his race number
There could be no better occasion than the Las Vegas Grand Prix to unveil his lucky number to the world. The setting is perfect: the gambling capital, with dice rolling on the green felt and the roulette ball spinning endlessly. For Alpine’s young debutant, Jack Doohan, the ball has landed on 7. This will be the race number used by the Australian, the son of motorsport legend Mick Doohan, throughout his Formula 1 career starting from the 2025 season.

In honor of Kimi Raikkonen
Jack Doohan announced his choice in Las Vegas via a video shared on Alpine’s social media accounts. His decision is unmistakably linked to Kimi Raikkonen, who carried the number 7 from 2014 until his retirement in 2021, making it one of his signature marks. “The 7 will be my race number for 2025,” Jake Doohan said, “and I’m super excited because I really wanted to choose a number that I had raced with before and that had great significance to me. I used it in 2019, but it’s also one of the numbers used by one of my idols, a special person and driver like Kimi Raikkonen. I can’t wait to continue this tradition and make the number 7 my own, hoping it brings me luck.”

Jack Doohan is the first of the new rookies to take on such a “heavy” number, one that belonged for many years to a world champion who remains beloved and widely followed like Kimi Raikkonen, who remains the most recent Ferrari F1 world champion, having secured the title for the Maranello team back in 2007 after a memorable Brazilian Grand Prix. According to the regulations, a race number remains reserved for at least two years after the last race of the driver who used it, meaning it officially became available again following the 2023 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and could be claimed starting with the current F1 season.

Jack Doohan will, however, need to prove himself worthy of defending the number on the track, showing both character and speed. According to recent rumors, the young Australian has a contract with Alpine for only the first five races of the upcoming season.