This is the seventh entry in our F1 Myths and Madness series. Formula 1 is a sport built on data, engineering, and precision. It has also, for decades, quietly avoided a single number out of pure superstition.
A Fear Older Than the Sport Itself
The fear of the number 13, known formally as triskaidekaphobia, has existed across many cultures for centuries, long before Formula 1 or even the automobile existed. It shows up in building design, in hotel floor numbering, in aviation, and in plenty of other places where people quietly work around the number rather than confront it directly. Motor racing inherited that same superstition early on, and Formula 1 carried it forward for most of its history, even as the sport styled itself as a showcase for cutting edge engineering and rational thinking.
The Team That Refused to Build It
One of the clearest examples of this superstition in action comes from McLaren’s M23 chassis program. Across the model’s production run, the team built a total of 13 individual chassis, numbered sequentially. Except they did not actually number them one through 13. Instead, the sequence ran from 1 to 12, then skipped straight to 14, deliberately avoiding the number entirely rather than assign it to any of the cars built. It was not a rule imposed by the sport’s governing body. It was a choice made internally by the team, treating the number as bad luck worth avoiding even in something as unglamorous as chassis serial numbers.
Ken Tyrrell’s Own Superstition
Team owner Ken Tyrrell showed the same instinct with his own cars. When his team’s first Renault powered car arrived in 1985, the natural next number in the team’s own internal sequence should have been 013. Tyrrell chose to skip it, jumping straight to 014 instead, avoiding the number in his own naming convention purely by personal choice rather than any external requirement. Across the sport more broadly, drivers and teams for decades simply avoided using the number 13 on cars whenever they had any flexibility in choosing it, treating the avoidance almost as an unspoken rule even though nothing in the regulations required it.
The Rare Exceptions
The number was not universally avoided. Driver Solana Moises actually raced with the number 13 at the 1963 Mexican Grand Prix, and Divina Galica, one of only five women to ever attempt to qualify for a Formula 1 race, used the number for her debut attempt at the 1976 British Grand Prix, though she did not ultimately qualify for the race itself. These appearances were rare enough that they stood out specifically because almost everyone else avoided the number whenever they had a choice.
How Modern F1 Finally Broke the Curse
Formula 1 introduced a new permanent driver number system in 2014, requiring each driver to choose a number they would keep for their entire career rather than numbers being assigned based on the previous year’s championship standings. When the new system launched, driver Pastor Maldonado chose to take on the number 13 for himself, becoming the first driver in decades to carry it as a primary, permanent number rather than as a rare one off exception. Nothing happened to Maldonado that could reasonably be blamed on the number itself, and the choice was largely seen at the time as a driver simply not caring about old superstition. Since Maldonado left the sport, however, no other driver has chosen to pick up the number 13 again, leaving it sitting unused on the list of available numbers even though nothing prevents any current or future driver from taking it.
What Actually Is Retired
It is worth clearing up a common point of confusion here. Number 13 was never officially banned or retired by Formula 1’s governing body. The only number that has ever been formally retired from the sport is number 17, taken out of circulation permanently as a mark of respect following the death of driver Jules Bianchi. Number 13 remains fully legal and available today, simply unclaimed, sitting as a strange, quiet monument to how long a superstition can linger even in a sport this precise and this modern.
Why We Wrote This
This is the seventh entry in our F1 Myths and Madness series, following whether an F1 car could drive upside down, Crashgate, Spygate, the myth of the fair fight, Andrea Moda, and the Tyrrell P34. For the full picture of how the sport works, start with our complete guide to everything you need to know about F1. Learn more on our Brand Guidelines page, or read about what Wolvra stands for on our About Us page.