Oscar Piastri revealed why had decided to choose 81 as his race number in Formula 1.
Piastri will make his F1 debut next season with McLaren. The Australian decided to have 81 as his race number.
“Basically, when I did my first race, I had to pick a number for my first race and the car shop I went to only had number ones in stock. And it had to be a one or two-digit number,” Piastri said on the official Australian GP podcast about how he started racing under number 81.
“I obviously couldn’t be number one because for obvious reasons. So I was actually number 11 for my first couple of races.
“We entered – I think it was the Victorian state titles – and somebody had already entered as number 11. So I don’t know what inspired me to pick 81, but I changed the first one for a number eight and it stuck ever since.
“That will be it [my racing number] as long as nobody pinches that before we put in my number. But I think that one’s pretty safe.”
