Mick Schumacher selected 47 as his race number for his F1 debut in 2021, even though it wasn’t his actual choice.
Schumacher said that his ideal race number choices were 4 and 7, both taken up by Lando Norris and Kimi Raikkonen, respectively. He was then left with two choices – either have something which could be added to make it four or seven, or use them together.
The latter became the way, where the decision was then to choose between 47 and or 74. The former won the pick, where Schumacher had three strong reasons to use them. The third one didn’t came to directly, but it was through the fans that it became evident.
The first reason was clear, whereas the second reason from Schumacher for taking up 47 was that the birthdates of his family equaled to that number, where Michael’s birthday is on January 3, Corinna’s on March 2, Gina’s on February 20 and Mick’s on March 22.
This were his initial two reasons, but later on, the number 47 solidified even further, as it became a ‘For Michael’ equation, where ‘four’ was taken as ‘for’ and the ‘seven’ denoted the number of F1 world championships won by his father.
Here’s full explanation from Schumacher: “I chose the starting number 47 for several reasons, and all these reasons make it the ideal number for me. My favorite number is 4, and I can find myself in everything it stands for – responsibility, curiosity, determination. The 7 stands for my father. It is the number he always chose; not least because it is the number of his World Championship titles.
“The 4 and the 7 together make a unit of or a connection between the two of us. And the fact that our family’s birthdays added together make 47 feels to me like a confirmation of that choice. For the first time I had the number 47 on the Ferrari of 2018, at the F1 test in Fiorano before my first FP1.
“Right after that, fans speculated in the comments on social media why this number was chosen. I also found their explanation really good and I’m happy to take it over: they said to read it like “For (instead of four) 7”, and the “7” stands for Michael, which is true. So the 47 would mean “For Michael”.”
Staying with the tradition, Schumacher is also bringing back the ‘MSC’ initials on the F1 timing screens after using SCH in his junior career. The German feels that this is the right thing to do and give something back to the fans of the sport and also his father.
Adding more on learning from his father’s work, Schumacher feels that team bond will be crucial in his first F1 season. “There are a few different factors, obviously, I think, for me, the biggest one, which I’ve, you know, done already for for a long time now is you want to have a very strong bond to the team,” he said to media including FormulaRapida.net.
“And that’s really what I also aim for. And I have an I’m really happy about that. Definitely, that’s one of the strengths is, and being mentally, as strong as we can be in every situation is also one, which is really important. Then basically, just starting off the season on the high end, and hopefully we’ll be able to, to carry through everything that I’ve learned in my past years, and be able to, you know, perform on a high level of what we need.
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