“I don’t think there is a single employee in our business who would have traded first place in the constructors ‘championship for this drivers’ championship,” said Christian Horner as he contemplated Red Bull-Honda’s victory over Mercedes in Formula 2021 1 constructors’ championship, although Max Verstappen refused Lewis Hamilton the driver’s crown.
“Everyone is proud of what they have achieved – if you look at the reactions Max had when he visited the factory.
“Of course, because of this distribution of sales, the design engineers are of enormous importance; we are talking, for example, of the millions and billions of dollars of difference between a first and a second place.
“But the prestige of the drivers’ world championship is the greatest.
“That’s what you really want, and that’s why it meant so much.”
These thoughts should probably be seen against the background of how bitter the situation Red Bull vs. Mercedes / Horner vs. Toto Wolff was at the end of the season. Immediately after the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix concluded, before the extent of Mercedes’ anger became clear, Horner had said more magnanimously, “It feels like the right result that the championships have been shared”.
But Horner is also right.
Championship doubles are by far the most common result in F1. In the 64 seasons in which the designers also had a title to chase, it was won 53 times by the master driver team.
And it is noticeable that in most of the eleven seasons in which the drivers’ and constructors’ titles went to different teams, a particularly excruciating finish or even tragedy hit the team that won the constructors’ titles but lost the drivers.
The only other time that it happened in the 21st century is also the only time in this century that the title was decided in the very last round: 2008.
By the time Lewis Hamilton slipped past Timo Glock in Interlagos within sight of the flag, Ferrari was on the way to a double title.
The fact that the constructors were still sealed – their last ever F1 title to date – was no consolation as Ferrari, Brazil and Felipe Massa cried together that evening.
That may have been a particularly dramatic loss of the title, but the reason Ferrari didn’t win the constructors and Hamilton’s McLaren team was relatively prosaic.
Ferrari’s outgoing champ Kimi Raikkonen and Massa were a pretty evenly matched couple, even though Raikkonen was not in his 2007 form. At McLaren, Heikki Kovalainen had disappointed after being picked by Renault when relationship with Fernando Alonso became unsustainable, and he only finished seventh in a championship won by team-mate Hamilton.
1999 was the same scenario where a McLaren driver won but Ferrari took the team title, albeit under more frustratingly traumatic circumstances.
Michael Schumacher’s brilliance on either side of his broken leg, Eddie Irvine’s best performance of his career when he was named Ferrari number one status, and Mika Salo’s great results on low downforce tracks when substituting for Schumacher all added up to a constructors’ title Ferrari would probably still do that. I wouldn’t have won if McLaren Champion Mika Häkkinen and especially his teammate David Coulthard had been less wasteful with what is generally the fastest car.
That ’99 constructors crown still ended the drought of Ferrari’s Formula 1 title, but made it even clearer that Schumacher would have ended his long spell without drivers’ title a year earlier without his injury.
The late Frank Williams was one of the most famous team bosses for the designer title. That was also good considering the times when his team won during that time, but lost the driver’s crown under frustrating circumstances.
Nigel Mansell’s tire damage and Nelson Piquet’s precautionary tire change in Adelaide in 1986 caused McLaren’s Alain Prost to withdraw the driver’s title. How often they had deducted points from each other also helped, underscored by the fact that Williams viewed a dominant Constructors’ Championship as dwindling and the hapless Keke Rosberg didn’t add much to McLaren’s record.
Arguing Williams drivers who refused each other points and then broke everything apart in the final was also the topic in 1981.
Carlos Reutemann’s still unbelievable fall to eighth place in the Las Vegas finals allowed Brabham driver Piquet to win the drivers’ championship, but did not cost Williams the constructors as his teammate Alan Jones dominated the race.
Brabham’s second driver policy, which at the time was more “irrelevant no-hoper” than even “supportive number two” (Piquet’s team-mate Hector Rebaque didn’t get anywhere near the podium all year), had left that door very open for Williams. But actually it should have kept the driver’s title if Reutemann’s year didn’t end so strangely.
Williams’ victory / driver-defeat of the other constructors was tragic and was decided by injustice.
Michael Schumacher was effectively a one-car team at Benetton in 1994 between the injury of intended teammate JJ Lehto, the inexperience of Jos Verstappen, and the dice throw by Johnny Herbert who failed to score in the late season.
That meant that although Ayrton Senna couldn’t score for Williams before his tragic death, Damon Hill, with the support of Coulthard and Mansell, was still able to lead the team to an emotional constructors victory. But the way Hill was denied the driver’s crown – when Schumacher drove in a damaged car when he crashed into a wall in Adelaide – took its toll.
The 1994 season was one of four in which tragedy was a major factor in a team missing out on a championship double.
Either Gilles Villeneuve or Didier Pironi would certainly have become champion for Ferrari in 1982 had Villeneuve lived, or Pironi hadn’t had his career crash.
Patrick Tambay and Mario Andretti still ensured Ferrari was the master designer, but Rosberg was drivers world champion for a Williams team with no designer hope (it was only fourth there) after Reutemann’s abrupt resignation at the beginning of the season and the struggles of Derek Daly.
In 1973 Lotus had the momentum of the constructors and had taken Tyrrell one point ahead of the Watkins Glen final, but Francois Cevert’s death in practice and the team’s consequent withdrawal from the race ensured that Tyrrell didn’t take the constructors to Jackie Stewart’s final drivers title . Ronnie Peterson’s USA win solidified it for Lotus.
Both protagonists of the first constructors’ championship fight fought through tragedy in 1958. Master driver Mike Hawthorn lost two of his Ferrari teammates – Luigi Musso and Peter Collins – in accidents during the middle of the season. The Vanwall team, led by Stirling Moss, earned its first Constructors ‘title as it was generally the faster car, but the day it netted victory was marred by the death of Moss’ teammate Stuart Lewis-Evans.
Only a split championship result could really be considered a “normal” competitive scenario: 1983.
Ferrari had the most balanced line-up of the teams in this three-way battle for the championship. Rene Arnoux and Tambay won their last Formula 1 title together until 1999, when champion driver Piquet’s Brabham team-mate Riccardo Patrese was unlucky (he only finished two races the whole season) and Eddie Cheever was often far from the drivers removed ‘Vice-champion cheers at Renault.
However, it might have been a title double for Ferrari if Arnoux hadn’t spun at Brands Hatch and had an early engine failure in the Kyalami final.
Ultimately, if a team wins a title, it almost certainly would have had the pace to win both of them. At best, a triumph only for the designers likely means it’s the best car, but one of its drivers let it down. But for the most part in F1 history, the reason the other title slipped was far more painful than just a small underperformance.
Mercedes eventually celebrated its remarkable eighth consecutive Constructors’ title, and rightly so – an astonishing achievement.
But it will never be the first thing people remember about the 2021 season.
