Formula One comeback king Michael Schumacher has swapped racing numbers with Mercedes team mate Nico Rosberg for superstitious reasons
Formula One comeback king Michael Schumacher has swapped racing numbers with Mercedes team mate Nico Rosberg for superstitious reasons.
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Number game: Michael Schumacher will make a comeback with No 3 on his car |
"Michael has a preference for odd numbers," a team spokeswoman said. "He asked if he could be the odd number and we were happy to accept." She said the governing International Automobile Federation had approved the switch, with Schumacher now having number three on his car and Rosberg four, and a new list would be issued in due course.
As a seven times world champion, Schumi has spent much of his record-breakingu00a0 career with number one on his car. He won all his titles with odd numbers -- five as number one and once with three and five.
Since 1973, when drivers were given numbers for the entire season, nobody has started as number four and won the championship.u00a0 Thirteen is considered unlucky and not allocated while Britain's Damon Hill raced with the number zero at Williams in 1993 and 1994 because in each year the reigning champion had left the sport.
Odd numbers are not Schumi's only foible. He always wore a ceramic amulet, given to him by his wife and with the initials of his family members, when racing. In 2004, he left it in his hotel in Bahrain and a team member had to rush and collect it before the race. The German said later that the amulet had made "perhaps the decisive difference".
