Teams that Dominated an Entire Formula 1 Season

Teams in Formula 1 spend millions of dollars trying to get a competitive car that can win races and titles. But even in such a competitive environment, some teams find a way to dominate over others.

Mercedes have been one such team, showing finest performance over the recent two seasons. With Mercedes wrapping up the Constructors already this year, here we look at some of the teams that completely dominated an entire Formula 1 season( in no particular order), winning both the constructor’s and the driver’s title in impressive fashion.

5. Mercedes (2014)

Mercedes proved their strength with the coming of the new 1.6L V6 engines in 2014 and won an impressive 16 out of the 19 races on the Formula 1 calendar.

Their engines were far more competitive than any other on the grid and Mercedes were bested only by Red Bull and that too to Daniel Ricciardo due to reliability issues on the Mercedes cars.

Lewis Hamilton won the driver’s title ahead of teammate Rosberg with the title fight going to the last race with Ricciardo a distant third in the final standings. In the end, Hamilton won 11 races while Rosberg won only 5.

4. Williams Renault (1996)

1996 saw Williams crush the opposition after winning 12 of the 16 races on the calendar. The Patrick Head and Adrian Newey designed FW18 brought great success to the Williams team with them winning the constructor’s title and their driver Damon Hill winning the world championship from his teammate Jacques Villeneuve, after winning eight races compared to Villeneuve’s four.

Hill became the first son  of a world champion to become a world champion himself that year.  Defending champions Benetton Renault moved to the midfield after the departure of defending double world champion Michael Schumacher who moved to Ferrari along with other staff personnel.

3. Red Bull Renault (2013)

Sebastian Vettel dominated the entirety of the 2013 Formula 1 season, winning the last 9 races of the season to take his tally of wins to 13 out of the 19 races in the season and matched Michael Schumacher’s record for the maximum number of wins in a single season.

His dominance was such that in the driver’s championship, second placed Alonso was 155 points behind Vettel. This was Vettel’s fourth consecutive driver’s title who equaled Alain Prost in the number of driver’s titles won. His teammate Mark Webber failed to win a single race in the sister Red Bull.

2. Ferrari (2002 and 2004)

In 2002, the Ferrari team won an impressive 15 out of the 17 races while in 2004, they won 15 out of the 18 races. Those were the years of Ferrari dominance over all the other teams.

Michael Schumacher won the driver’s title both years ahead of teammate Rubens Barrichello. Schumacher won 11 races in 2002 and 13 race wins in 2004, the most number of races won by a single driver in a season only matched by Sebastian Vettel in 2013.

Ferrari’s lead over the others in terms of points in the constructor’s championship was so great that the points system was changed for 2005 to stop this dominance.

1. McLaren Honda (1988)

In 1988, the Mclaren MP4/4 won a jaw dropping 15 of the 16 races on the calendar, making it one of the most dominant seasons in the history of Formula 1.

Ayrton Senna won the drivers championship ahead of his teammate Alain Prost. McLaren won the constructor’s championship by 134 points ahead of second placed Ferrari with 65 points (keep in mind that in 1988, a race win meant 9 points, second place 6 points and third place only 4).

One of the factors in favor of McLaren was that they had secured the Honda 1.5L V6 turbo engine for the 1988 season, which was one of the most powerful engines at the time and this partnership led to one of the most dominating partnerships in the history of Formula 1.