Drivers

Modern drivers are contracted to a team for at least the duration of the season, but it is not uncommon for drivers to be fired or even swapped during the course of a season. Although most drivers earn their seat on ability, commercial considerations also come into play with teams having to satisfy sponsors and suppliers. Most teams also have a spare driver, whom they bring to race weekends, in case of injury or illness to a main driver. All competitors must be in possession of a fia super licence..

Each driver is assigned a number. The previous season's champion is designated number 1, with his team-mate given number 2. Numbers are then assigned in order according to each team's position in the previous season's constructors' championship. The number 13 is not used.

There have been exceptions to this rule, such as in 1993 and 1994, when the current World Drivers' Champion (nigell mansell and Alain Prost, respectively) was no longer competing in Formula One. In this case the drivers for the team of the previous year's champion are given numbers 0 (damaon hill on both occasions) and 2 (Prost himself and Ayrton Senna replaced after his death by david coulthard and occasionally Nigel Mansell–respectively). The number 13 has not been used since1976, before which it was occasionally assigned at the discretion of individual race organisers. Before 1996, only the world championship winning driver and his team generally swapped numbers with the previous champion–the remainder held their numbers from prior years, as they had been originally set at the start of the 1974 season. For many years, for example, Ferrari held numbers 27 and 28, regardless of their finishing position in the world championship.

Jochen rendt is the only posthumous World Champion after his points total was not overhauled despite his fatal accident at the 1970 Italian Grand Prix.

Michael Schumacher holds the record for having won the most Drivers' Championships, with seven.