THE CARD
THAT MATTERS.

Oliver Bearman’s 2025 #19 carries an RC shield. His 2024 #4 does not. I would choose #4.

On 9 March 2024, Bearman stepped into Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari and finished seventh on his Grand Prix debut. The card shows him smiling in red overalls beside the garage. Its printed headline marks the youngest British driver to race in F1; the weekend behind it includes the late call-up, the Ferrari seat and the points.

The 2025 Haas card records something else: his first race as a permanent driver. Both belong in the timeline. For a collection built around the sporting moment, the Ferrari card is the one I would put at the front. Its published base run is 5,164, compared with 1,896 for #19.

Antonelli’s 2025 #14 combines the RC logo with a proper Grand Prix debut: sixteenth to fourth in Melbourne on 16 March. The portrait catches him in Mercedes overalls at the beginning of that first season. Topps published 7,291 base copies.

The tempting comparison is #28: the Suzuka card for becoming the youngest driver to lead a Grand Prix and set its fastest lap. Both cards carry RC, and #28 has a much smaller base run of 1,714.

I would still start with #14. It fixes the opening race in the collection, with a result substantial enough to stand on its own. #28 adds the first records and a photograph of the car on track. Choose it because those records or that image matter to you; the smaller print run cannot make the choice for you.

For Piastri, I would move further into the rookie season. His 2023 #56 shows him raising one finger after winning the Qatar Sprint on 7 October. The image says what the result says: he has won an F1 race. The exact kind of race belongs in the description: a Sprint.

#008, with 1,752 base copies, records his first points in Australia. #51, with 1,174, records his first Grand Prix podium in Japan. Those are strong alternatives. My choice is #56, with 2,184 copies, because I want the first Sprint victory and that photograph at the centre of the Piastri page.

Neither the official #008 front nor #56 shows an RC shield. They are cards from his F1 rookie season. His first Grand Prix victory belongs to the separate 2024 #41 Hungary card. His earlier F2 title card deserves a place alongside them.

Hadjar’s first-points card, 2025 #26, has a published base run of just 681. His first-podium card, #58, has 5,891. I prefer the podium card.

Third place at Zandvoort on 31 August 2025 was the larger sporting achievement, and the photograph gives the card its character: Hadjar smiling with the trophy in his hand. The RC shield is there too.

#26 records his first points at Suzuka and suits a collection of early breakthroughs. #58 records the afternoon he reached the Grand Prix podium. The larger print run makes it a larger edition; it does not make the moment less memorable. The 5,891 figure belongs to the ordinary base shown here, not to a separate image variation.

Zhou Guanyu’s 2022 #004 is a simple card to understand. Bahrain, 20 March: his Grand Prix debut, tenth place and a first championship point. Topps published 3,412 base copies, with the RC logo visible on the front.

The car on track and the short caption do the work. There is a complete sporting sentence here, even if the result is a tenth place rather than a win.

I would choose this over a preseason introduction. A Road to 2022 #P07 exists, so #004 is not a claim about his earliest NOW appearance. It is the card for the first race and the first point together.

Colapinto’s 2024 #51 shows him in Williams overalls, helmet in hand. It carries the RC shield and the date of his Monza debut, 1 September 2024. He finished twelfth after starting eighteenth. The published base run is 2,339.

His first points came in Azerbaijan two weeks later and have their own card, #55, with a run of 1,676. If your collection is about first results, that is the alternative to examine.

I would keep #51 as the opening card. The portrait, the team and the debut caption leave little to explain. It records the Williams arrival, before later results and team changes add more chapters.

Lawson’s 2023 #48 records ninth place in Singapore on 17 September and his first F1 points. The base run is 1,456. There is no RC shield on the official front.

His Dutch Grand Prix debut had already appeared on #42, with 2,527 copies. That card also has no visible RC logo. The dates and the events still place both at the start of his F1 career.

I would choose #48 for the first result in the points. A collector building a strict RC-logo set would make a different decision. Both approaches are coherent, provided the label tells the truth about the card.