When Formula 1 Constructor Champions Melt Down One Year After Glory

Last season's near-domination by the Mercedes AMG organization on the Formula 1 racing tour would be a circumstance everyone related to the team would wish could never end. Unfortunately for them, the green flag in Australia will mark a point where 2014 is forever cemented in history. 2015 will be a new beginning for which Mercedes AMG is going to build on another foundation. The question we will all ask is whether a mighty structure will again represent the Formula 1 team's 2015 season.

An impressive overall performance involving victories in 16 of the 19 races on the 2014 tour en route to a constructors‘ title for Mercedes AMG and team driver Lewis Hamilton capturing the drivers‘ championship, the specific Formula 1 run was individually memorable. However, domination by a single team in a single season is not a new thing in the open-wheel world championship racing series. From 2010 until the start of last season, Red Bull Racing shaped a dynasty through several successful seasons of Formula 1 competition. As evident last season, the Red Bull Racing’s dominant reign ended when the green flag fell at the 2014 Australian Grand Prix. Sometimes it comes as a situation of more modest success such as the case with Red Bull Racing (although four-time champion Sebastian Vettel went winless). Other times, a championship season for driver and constructor results in some radically ill-equipped title defences the following season.

When brilliance one season turns into a plummeting fall from grace the next, reigning champions often simply blow it in regards to creating a competitive package. In the decades of Formula 1 competition, some championships fall a little bit harder than others do. The following examples illustrate the risk teams in the position of Mercedes AMG face after a very fruitful year emerging in an all-new season:

Cooper Car Company 1960 and 1961

1960

Team Points: 48

Driver Points
Jack Brabham: 43
Bruce McLaren: 34

1961

Team Points: 14

Driver Points
Jack Brabham: 4
Bruce McLaren: 11


While the Auto Union race cars of the 1930s demonstrated how effective mounting an engine behind the driver is to on-track performance, it took an innovative group of Brits named Charles Cooper and his son John Cooper to make the vehicle layout a lasting fixture in Formula 1. Able to out-drive more powerful front-engined roadsters, the Cooper T43 Formula 1 car powered by a Climax engine debuted in 1957 and immediately scored a sixth place finish. A feat accomplished by Australian Jack Brabham in Monaco, it would be a short two years later when the effort resulted in a drivers’ championship for Brabham and a constructors’ title for Cooper. As the rest of Formula 1 was forced to adjust to the mid-engined Cooper, the pairing repeated their feat in 1960. In the 1960 season, Brabham’s championship run was marked by five consecutive Formula 1 grand prix victories. A young driver named Bruce McLaren also won the Argentine Grand Prix.

For 1961, Formula 1 changed the engine regulations resulting in smaller powerplant displacement size of 1.5 liters. Cooper’s effectiveness on the track was erased by both their unsuccessful adjustment to the new rules and the adaptation of mid-engined layouts by other teams including Ferrari. A third place scored by Bruce McLaren at the Italian Grand Prix was the high point of the season where the Cooper-Climax lost its advantage. In the final 1961 champion standings, McLaren outscored his teammate Jack Brahbam.

Brabham left the Cooper Car Company team after the 1961 season and immediately founded his own race team. Brabham’s engineering expertise that was valued by Cooper went into his team’s success. Bruce McLaren stayed at Cooper for several season and won on the 1962 Monaco Grand Prix. Eventually, McLaren followed Brabham and created his own successful Formula 1 team. Cooper never regained the success of they achieved when the pioneered the mid-engined Formula 1 revolution and ran their final race in 1969.

A disclaimer relating to the points, only the best six races in the nine races on the 1960 Formula 1 calendar counted while only the five top finishes counted in 1961.


　

Brabham (Motor Racing Development Limited) 1967 and 1968

1967

Team Points: 63

Driver Points
Denny Hulme: 51
Jack Brabham: 46

1968

Team Points: 10

Driver Points
Jochen Rindt: 8
Jack Brabham: 2


The late Jack Brabham was perhaps the best driver/owner to ever compete in Formula 1. A three-time world driving champion in 1959, 1960 and 1966, Brahbam also had front-running success with his team called Motor Racing Development Limited (frequently referred to simply as Brabham). Beyond his own success that included winning in his own chassis in 1966, Jack Brabham’s team involved other racing greats competing for and sometimes beside the boss. In 1967, Brabham finished behind his teammate and driver Denny Hulme. After taking the 1967 world drivers’ championship from his boss, the New Zealand driver Hulme went to McLaren. Alongside Jack Brabham, future Formula 1 champion Jochen Rindt drove the second team car through the 1968 season.

Though Brabham won their second constructors’ title, the late stages of the 1967 season saw Team Lotus and their new Ford Cosworth DFV engine gaining on the Repco-powered Brabhams. In an attempt to stay ahead of the eight-cylinder Ford powerplant, Repco was encouraged to create an improved version of their V-8 engine. The major year-to-year difference between the Repco engines was the incorporation of a double overhead cam valvetrain design. The engine delivered improved horsepower but was unreliable.

Jochen Rindt left the Brabham team to drive with Team Lotus for the 1969 season. As for driver and team owner Jack Brabham, he persevered for two more seasons behind the wheel before settling into team ownership and managing other ventures.

　

Ferrari 1979 and 1980

　

1979

Team Points: 113


Driver Points
Jody Scheckter: 51
Gilles Villeneuve: 47

1980

Team Points: 8


Driver Points
Jody Scheckter:2
Gilles Villeneuve: 6


Among Formula 1 championship teams, the Ferrari team perhaps suffered the biggest year-to-year collapse. The 1979 season was a fairy tale for the entire Italian Formula 1 organization. Leaving the Walter Wolf Racing team after the 1978 season, South African driver Jody Scheckter entered his eighth Formula 1 season (sixth full-time) still searching for a World Championship. Scheckter had come close in previous seasons with a runner-up finish in the standings after 1977 and pair of 3rd place results driving for Tyrrell. At the end of the 1979 Formula 1 championship, Jody Scheckter prevailed resisting a strong challenge from Ferrari teammate Canadian driver Gilles Villeneuve. Villeneuve, who entered Formula 1 with a reputation for being aggressive and hard on race cars, left 1979 proving he can tame himself for a season-long championship run. Scheckter and Villeneuve run a variation of a Ferrari 312T chassis first used in 1975. A 1979 Constructors’ title for Ferrari was the fourth with that particular chassis.

For 1980, the driver line-up remained intact driving an updated 312T5 race car powered by a 12-cylinder engine. Despite improvements, the new Ferrari race car was poorly matched against other teams. Not only was Jody Scheckter and Gilles Villeneuve unable to win a race in 1980 for Ferrari, neither driver could finish higher than fifth place in a grand prix event. Lacking race pace and a ten total retirements between the two drivers resulted in a 10th place finish in the constructors’ championship for 1980 with just eight points.

Following the disastrous 1980 season, Jody Scheckter retired from Formula 1 while Gilles Villeneuve remained with Ferrari driving a completely new, more competitive 126CK race car powered by a turbocharged six-cylinder engine.

　

Williams 1997 and 1998

1997

Team Points: 123

Driver Points
Jacques Villeneuve: 81
Heinz-Harald Frentzen: 42

1998

Team Points: 38

Drivers’ Points
Jacques Villeneuve: 21
Heinz-Harald Frentzen: 17


During the mid-1990s, the Williams Formula 1 team was regarded as the hot spot for drivers wanting to be in championship form. Nigel Mansell and Alain Prost won championship with the organization in 1992 and 1994 respectively. In 1996, Damon Hill became the world champion beating teammate and Formula 1 newcomer Jacques Villeneuve for the title. As Hill left Williams for Arrows, German driver Heinz-Harald Frentzen joined Jacques Villeneuve. Villeneuve battled tensely with Michael Schumacher to win the 1997 World Drivers’ Championship in Formula 1. The combined team effort aided by seven wins from Villeneuve and Frentzen’s victory at the San Marino Grand Prix gave Williams its fifth constructors’ title in six years.

The driver line-up for Williams remained unchanged for 1998 as Jacques Villeneuve wore the #1 on a new look race car. The Rothman cigarette brand’s familiar blue and white livery was replaced by Winfield’s red and white. While the different look was a major adjustment to fans, the team’s biggest learning curve was all-new Formula 1 rules. Narrower side dimensions and grooved race tires replacing slicks were mandated for all teams but Williams was forced to give up much of their constructor championship-winning notepad referring to the 1997 car. Williams also lost ace Formula 1 car designer Adrian Newey to McLaren in 1998.

Perhaps the biggest year-to-year change was the discontinuation of factory support from Renault. Williams was provided with engine power from Mecachrome, the company that for years built Renault’s Formula 1 power units. The Mecachrome engine was almost the same Renault V-10 engine Williams ran in 1997 while Mercedes-Benz and Ferrari reengineered their powerplants for 1998, the Williams race cars would ultimately be seen as less potent. This showed in qualifying as the Williams-Mecachrome failed to score a pole in 1998 after 11 in 1997.

For the entire 1998 season, Williams struggled simply to climb on a podium in races where either Jacques Villeneuve or Heinz-Harald Frentzen won. Frentzen grabbed a third place in the Australian Grand Prix while Villeneuve was third at both the German and Hungarian Grand Prix. After the lacklustre season, both drivers parted with the Williams team. Heinz-Harald Frentzen joined with the Benson and Hedges Jordan team while Jacques Villeneuve joined the newly formed British-American Racing team for 1999. Since his world championship, Jacques Villeneuve’s racing career has never come close to equalling the same success.

The Best and Worst of Teammate Championship Battles in Formula 1

This weekend, the 2014 Formula 1 World Drivers' Championship will be decided with the outcome of the final race of the tour's season; the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix at the Yas Marina Circuit. Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, the dominant duo of 2014 wheeling the Mercedes-Benz F1 W05 Hybrid race cars for Mercedes AMG, stand 17 points apart heading into the race event. Though their collective efforts resulted in 15 victories in 18 races in 2014 providing the Mercedes AMG team with a constructors' title, Rosberg and Hamilton are left to duke out the outcome of the drivers' title.

Since 1950, the teammates have finished in the first and second place in the Formula 1 World Championship 17 times in past seasons (if you include the 1997 season Williams drivers Jacques Villeneuve and Heinz-Herald Frentzen finished at the top after Michael Schumacher was excluded from the official results). For Mercedes-Benz, it is the second time their drivers will be placed in a one-two scenario in the points. Juan Manuel Fangio won the championship over Mercedes teammate Sterling Moss in 1955. The last time teammates finished at the top of the points occurred a decade ago when Michael Schumacher convincingly prevailed over teammate Rubens Barrichello at Ferrari.

Below are five examples of teammates who matched each other in neat identical equipment knowing, between the two drivers, only who could be proclaimed a champion.

1950: Alfa Romeo with Giuseppe Farina and Juan Manuel Fangio

In the first season of the Formula 1 tour, the young post-war racing scene of 1950 was immediately dominated by Alfa Romeo. The Italian automaker won all but one of the races involved in the 1950 Formula 1 schedule (the Indianapolis 500 was originally scored as a Formula 1 points race allowing a Kurtis Kraft-Offenhauser driven by Johnnie Parsons to claim a victory on the schedule). For the inaugural world drivers' championship, it was Italian Giuseppe Farina and Argentinian Juan Manuel Fangio in battle against each other. With only the best four of seven race finishes counting on the tour, Giuseppe Farina won the title thanks to wins at Silverstone, Monza and the Swiss Grand Prix at Circuit Bremgarten. Farina's one and only Formula 1 title, Fangio would win his first of five championships the following season. The two drivers are also recorded as the oldest competitors to be crowned Formula 1 champions.

1967: Brabham with Denny Hulme and Jack Brabham

An almost ridiculously impossible idea in modern Formula 1 racing, the recently-departed Sir Jack Brabham was a driver and team owner through the second-half of the 1960s. Not only was Brabham able to win races the with the same name, the Australian won a championship in 1966. For 1967, the Repco-engined Brabham race cars driven by Jack Brabham and teammate Denny Hulme faced Lotus and their all-new Ford-Cosworth DFV V8 engine. While the Lotus-Ford was powerful and quick, the Brabham-Repco proved more consistent over the course of the 1967 season. With 9 of 11 races being tallied for the drivers' title, the New Zealand driver Denny Hulme 2 wins and 8 podium finishes gave him a 5-point edge over his boss. Hulme moved to McLaren in 1968 while the Brabham team would perform poorly a season after winning the driver and constructor title.

1979: Ferrari with Jody Scheckter and Gilles Villeneuve 

The Ferrari team's long tenure in Formula 1 has resulted in 15 constructors' championships and four occasions where two team drivers finished one-two for the drivers' title. In 1979, teams hunting for a technological edge with ground effects and turbocharged engines contributed to a season plagued with front-running drivers claiming numerous race retirements. Ferrari team drivers Jody Scheckter and Gilles Villeneuve enjoyed a more reliable 1979 campaign with five DNFs combined (less than the total non-finishes of the third-place in points Alan Jones. With one fewer retirement, Scheckter was able to claim a four-point edge over the Canadian driver.

The title was a well-earned honour after much hard work for Scheckter as a veteran in Formula 1. The South African driver finished second in the championship in 1977 driving a Wolf-Ford owned by Austrian-born Canadian Walter Wolf. The 1979 Ferrari season produced Jody Scheckter's only championship and was the highest points placement in the career of Gilles Villeneuve.

1984: McLaren with Niki Lauda and Alain Prost

Frenchman Alain Prost would gain the status as a Formula 1 legend between a career that stretch from 1980 to 1993 consisting of 51 race victories within at time. While he would win four championships, Prost would finish second two consecutive times in the drivers' point before claiming his first. On the second occasion was in 1984 when Alain Prost returned to McLaren after three seasons with the Renault team. Competing in his 12th season in Formula 1 competition, returning McLaren driver Niki Lauda was aggressively challenged by the young Frenchman in the team's Porsche-powered race machine. Prost posted seven win in the 1984 compared to Lauda's five but the more veteran Formula 1 pilot's four second-place finishes kept him in the hunt. A rain-shortened Monaco Grand Prix ultimately cost Prost the championship. Instead of nine points for a win, the race being called prior to the half-way distance resulted in 4.5 points for Prost. Niki Lauda won the 1984 drivers' title by half a point becoming the closest season-ending championship result in the history of the open wheel racing tour.

The championship victory for Niki Lauda was his third and final Formula 1 title. Defending his title, Lauda retired from the sport after the 1985 season where Prost assumed champion honours.

1989: McLaren with Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna

The 1989 Formula 1 season was a battle among two motorsport titans. Teammates at McLaren, Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost rapidly shifted from having a generally cooperative relationship to being bitter rivals. Joining the team in 1988, Senna claimed his first championship with McLaren by overcoming Prost by three points thanks to eight race wins.

In 1989, the catalyst to what morphed into an outright poisonous relationship between Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna was the second race of the year at San Marino. Acting against an pre-race agreement, Senna passed Prost on a restart to win the event. First and second in the championship with the top eleven finishes coming for the championship, Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost headed into the second-to-last race in Suzuka, Japan. Failing to finish in five races, Senna required a good finish at the Japanese Grand Prix to contend against Prost. Both McLaren-Honda race cars started on the front row with Senna taking pole. During the race, Alain Prost gained the lead but Ayrton Senna was able to caught the other McLaren on lap 46. With a chance to pass Prost, Senna ran alongside his teammate intent to take the lead. The two cars fought their each other into a corner and made contact. Prost retired following the collision but Senna continued in his McLaren-Honda. Despite crossing the line first, Formula 1 stewards ruled Senna missed a chicane and disqualified the Brazilian driver effectively heading the 1989 world drivers' title to Alain Prost. A similar incident occurred the next season at Suzuka with Ayrton Senna remaining with McLaren and Prost joining Ferrari. That time, Senna came out as the victor for the 1990 championship.

The Senna/Prost battle for the 1989 championship is considered the ultimate inner-team fight some Formula 1 observers were expecting to see arise in 2014. An altercation during the Belgian Grand Prix saw a rivalry between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg erupt in a very public manner. However, after what seemed to be some stern words from team principal Toto Wolff, the relationship between the two championship contending teammate has appeared civil. The outcome of the 2014 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix will conclude whether the fight between the Mercedes AMG drivers will be another storied one.