F1's greatest ever one-team drivers ranked after Lando Norris commits to McLaren

Norris after pole at the Hungaroring — Photo: © IMAGO

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F1's greatest ever one-team drivers ranked after Lando Norris commits to McLaren

There's one obvious name at the top!

Chris Deeley Editor

Experienced sports writer covering F1 and other motorsports since 2023

Tuesday 1 September 2026 22:30

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One of the most celebrated figures in all of sport is the one-team man. The one who never abandons his beloved organisation, even if he has better offers, even at better teams.

There's a litany of one-team men in the history books of other major sports - Ryan Giggs, Paolo Maldini, Kobe Bryant, Derek Jeter, Ernie Banks, John Elway, Dan Marino, so on, and so forth - but in F1, there's very little attention paid to the achievement.

Lando Norris' new $40million-per-year McLaren contract, however, has sparked some residual interest in the concept. The Brit, famously, arrived in F1 with the team in 2019 after coming through their driver development programme, and has been there ever since, signing a deal over the weekend to extend his stay through 2030.

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Of the current grid, Norris looks the most on track to be a one-team man - although his new deal only takes him through his age-31 season, so there's plenty of time for a late-career move to Alpine if he loses his pace (or to a stronger team, if McLaren lose theirs).

Where, though, does he stack up against F1's greatest all-time one-team men?

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The greatest ever one-team F1 drivers

1. Jim Clark

It's hard for any driver in racing history to stack up next to Jim Clark and his career at Lotus. The Scottish two-time world champion finished his career with 25 grand prix wins and 33 pole positions - 10th and sixth all-time respectively - and racked up those numbers in just 72 starts.

Clark won nearly 35% of all F1 races he entered, with only Juan Manuel Fangio and Alberto Ascari in the 1950s topping that number, and remains the only driver in the sport's history to win his final race.

That final race, the 1968 South African Grand Prix, was the first of the '68 season and held four months before the next, the Spanish Grand Prix in May. Sadly, Clark never made it to Jarama for that May race - crashing heavily in a Deutschland Trophae race at Hockenheim and losing his life.

2. Lando Norris

Norris could retire on the spot and be the second-best one-team driver F1 has ever seen. He's the only one-team man apart from Clark to win a world championship, and already has the most starts of anyone whose list of teams doesn't have a second entry.

He gets an asterisk, of course, because his career's not finished yet and it's entirely possible that he wears another race suit before he hangs it up.

For now though, it's 163 starts, 13 wins, 18 pole positions and a world championship, all in papaya.

3. Oscar Piastri

No, seriously.

The Australian has done more in his three and a half seasons(!) in F1 with McLaren than any one-team man not listed above. Nine wins, six pole positions, a title challenge and 80 race starts. In fact, as things stand, Norris and Piastri are first and second for race starts among one-team drivers in F1 history.

If you ever wondered why there's no mythology of one-team drivers in F1, now you know. In terms of greats whose careers are actually over (Piastri, obviously, will leave McLaren at some point and leave the list, Norris may well do the same), it's Jim Clark and that's it.

Because check out who comes in after Piastri.

=4. Sebastien Buemi, Jean-Eric Vergne, Nicholas Latifi

Behold, the only other drivers in history to drive for only one team and start at least 50 races. Latifi managed the most races (61, for Williams), Vergne managed the most points and best finish (51 in 58 races, sixth in Singapore and Canada), and Buemi had the most incidents of both of his front wheels simultaneously detaching from his car at 190mph (China, 2010).

The trio have had someone divergent careers since leaving F1, with Latifi leaving racing to study for an MBA at the London Business School, while Vergne went on to win the Formula E championship twice and dabble in endurance racing for a few years.

Buemi, meanwhile, went on to become one of the great endurance racers in the world, winning Le Mans four times, the World Endurance Championship four times, and of course...doing it all with one team, sticking with Toyota for the last 14 years. He also won a Formula E title for good measure.

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Written by

Chris Deeley - Editor

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F1 McLaren Lando Norris Oscar Piastri Jim Clark