VOTE: What is the best F1 car of all time?

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VOTE: What is the best F1 car of all time?

It's time to have your say!

Jim Kimberley

Thursday 15 February 2024 22:42

Formula 1's 2023 season was completely dominated by Red Bull's RB19 car, which managed to claim 21 of the 22 race victories throughout the season.

In the wake of the team announcing their successor to that car at a launch event ahead of the upcoming 2024 season, we wanted to take a look at some of the most successful cars in F1 history.

Christian Horner's outfit clearly knows how to take a title, but the manner in which they cruised to success in 2023 was on a whole new level of supremacy from their other five.

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Despite its headline stars, F1 is a team sport, and no world champion driver can win the title without a worthy car underneath them.

We took a look back at some of F1's best creations, and give you the chance to vote for your favourite.

Lewis Hamilton has won six of his seven world championship titles with Mercedes

Mercedes' W11

We don't have to go too far back when thinking about an era of domination in F1 after the Silver Arrows' years at the top.

Eight consecutive constructors' championships is a feat that almost makes a season having a team winning all but one race look amateur.

Yet that's an observation when zooming out to a decade-long view, not how the German manufacturer handled each year with its turbo-hybrid creations.

The shortened 2020 season with the W11 had the Lewis Hamilton-Valtteri Bottas partnership excel at a level higher than anything they had managed before.

Like any other car controlling a season, the W11 wrapped up the constructors' championship early, by round 14 of 17, with the team finishing 2020 with a 44% margin over P2 in the standings.

Nonetheless, Mercedes stumbled four times that year, failing to win Silverstone's second race, Monza, Sakhir, or at Abu Dhabi.

Two of those (Monza and Sakhir) were through operational errors rather than car deficiencies, and Red Bull took full advantage, similar to Ferrari's Singaporean efforts last year.

Ferrari F2002

If the W11 taking the title at the 14th round of a 17-race season is impressive, Ferrari went one better in 2002 when they won the crown at round 13 of 17.

Michael Schumacher won five world championship titles with Ferrari

Different point-scoring systems make like-for-like comparisons tricky, but a 58% margin over Williams is incredible whether you score 25 points or 10 for victory.

Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello won all races aside from Malaysia and Monaco on their rout to bring 15 winner's trophies back to Maranello.

The F2002 didn't debut until the third round at Brazil, so it technically only lost one race — when David Coulthard pipped Schumacher to the flag by a one-second margin in Monte Carlo.

Schumacher drove his way to the podium in every single 2002 grand prix thanks to the F2002 (and F2001B), something even the mighty Max Verstappen could not do in the RB19.

Williams FW18

The 1996 entry from Williams isn't one that usually appears in arguments for F1's best car, but its point-scoring statistics are undeniable.

Ferrari's 70-point effort pales against Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve's 175-point tally (a 60% margin) that had the team take the constructors' championship by the 12th round of 16.

Errors from F1 rookie Villeneuve and the sport's late-comer Hill hide how potent a machine the FW18 was that year.

In three of the four races Williams failed to win in 1996, Hill or Villeneuve started on pole — the other was the craziest Monaco GP when just three cars crossed the line.

With no disrespect to either driver, they are both world champions, after all, a more consistent Williams line-up could've improved the FW18's win record.

Hill repeatedly span in a soaking Spain from P1, and he crashed from the lead in Monza, while an unfortunately-timed safety car meant Villeneuve couldn't convert his Spa pole to victory.

Imagine if one of the sport's best, like Verstappen, Hamilton, or Schumacher, drove the FW18 that year. There's no saying how much better it could've done... apart from the lottery of the 1996 Monaco GP, of course.

McLaren MP4/4

You knew you'd find the MP4/4 by scrolling down this list of domination, didn't you?

Pairing Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost together is so fantastical when thinking of F1 legends that it's crazy to think this ever happened.

Alain Prost was beaten by his team-mate Ayrton Senna in 1988

Senna took the title in yet another year with another point-scoring system, but the MP4/4 was the story of that season.

Talking numbers, McLaren's 199 points to Ferrari's 65 is a 67% margin that even Red Bull won't get close to this year.

The other cars on this list have team off days (Singapore 2023, Italy 2020), wild weather (Spain 1996), or an impossible-to-pass circuit (Monaco 2002) to blame for the races that they didn't win, but that isn't the case for the MP4/4.

This icon of the sport was just two laps from netting McLaren a perfect season of triumphs.

Senna led the 1988 Italian GP, but a crash when lapping a backmarker who ran through gravel at Rettifilo stopped that from happening.

Whether or not the RB19 was a superior machine to any of the other cars on this list is something fans could argue to the end of time, and now you get your chance to vote!