10 all-star F1 driver line-ups and how they got on

Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc will form F1’s latest big-name driver line-up in 2025 as they join forces at Ferrari. But there are plenty more examples of champions, winners and highly rated youngsters teaming up in the past. As the sport celebrates its 75th year, F1.com picks out a selection from the many decades of competition…

Fangio and Moss

We go all the way back to 1955 for the first combination on our list when superstar Juan Manuel Fangio and rising star Stirling Moss were paired at Mercedes – the former a two-time champion and the latter having caught the eye with his early F1 outings.

Fangio and Moss proved to be a superb match on and off the track, the master and apprentice showing plenty of respect for each other at very different stages of their respective careers while winning five of the six Grands Prix the Silver Arrows contested that season.

Fangio’s four victories aboard the W196 challenger saw him comfortably claim the world title, with Moss – who led his more experienced team mate home by just 0.2s in a statement Mercedes 1-2-3-4 finish at the British Grand Prix – placing second in the standings.

Moss and Fangio developed a special relationship while racing for Mercedes

Moss and Brooks

Fangio and Moss went their separate ways at the end of 1955, only briefly reuniting at Maserati in the ‘57 season opener, before the Argentinian topped up his title tally to five and the Briton started a new chapter at Vanwall alongside non-championship winner Tony Brooks.

The all-English pair made history at the ‘57 British Grand Prix with a shared drive to victory – Brooks nursing injuries from a Le Mans crash and handing over his car when Moss’ machine hit technical trouble – that marked the first World Championship race win for a British constructor.

BEYOND THE GRID: Fifties hero Tony Brooks on racing Fangio and Moss in F1's first decade

A year later, Moss and Brooks combined to win six of the nine rounds their team entered and, while it was another British racer in Ferrari’s Mike Hawthorn who ultimately clinched the ‘58 drivers’ title, Vanwall were crowned the sport’s first constructors’ – or ‘International Cup’ – champions.

Tony Brooks: The 'racing dentist' remembered

Clark and Hill

Jim Clark and Graham Hill were both F1 World Champions when they joined forces at Lotus midway through the 1960s – the Scot having won two titles with Colin Chapman’s squad and the Englishman having triumphed with another British organisation in BRM.

The ‘67 season turned into a fast but unreliable affair for the team, when they launched their new Lotus 49 car and also debuted the groundbreaking Ford Cosworth DFV engine, leaving Clark third in the championship on four wins and Hill seventh with a couple of podiums.

F1 ICONS: Damon Hill on his father, two-time World Champion and Triple Crown winner Graham

After regrouping over the winter, Lotus came charging out of the blocks in ‘68 with a 1-2 finish at the South African opener, only for the year to take a tragic turn when Clark lost his life in an F2 accident at Hockenheim – Hill stepping forward in his absence and taking the title.

JIM CLARK: Why F1's quiet champion remains a legend

Fittipaldi and Hulme

There is a case for including Emerson Fittipaldi’s 1973 partnership with Ronnie Peterson at Lotus here, but McLaren created another proven ‘super team’ the following year when the Brazilian joined their ranks alongside fellow champion Denny Hulme.

Hulme’s inherited victory at the first round in Argentina and Fittipaldi’s win on home soil next time out signalled a strong start in what would be a milestone season for McLaren – ‘Emmo’ scoring their first drivers’ championship and the team also earning the constructors’.

BEYOND THE GRID: Emerson Fittipaldi on flying the flag for Brazil and the loss of Ayrton Senna

While Fittipaldi stayed at McLaren for ‘75 and finished as that year’s runner-up, Hulme walked away from F1 amid growing fears over the sport’s dangers, which were reinforced when his friend and former team mate Peter Revson died in a testing crash.

Fittipaldi and Hulme formed an all-World Champion driver pairing at McLaren

Scheckter and Villeneuve

Jody Scheckter had a wild reputation in his early F1 days, not helped by triggering an enormous pile-up at the 1973 British Grand Prix, but he worked on those rough edges to become a race winner with Tyrrell and a championship runner-up with Walter Wolf Racing.

Ferrari liked what they saw from the South African as his career developed and, for ‘79, put him alongside talented youngster Gilles Villeneuve, who had only recently arrived on the F1 scene and scored his first victory with the Scuderia at the end of the ‘78 season.

F1 ICONS: Melanie Villeneuve on her father Gilles, the legendary Ferrari racer

Scheckter, Villeneuve and Mauro Forghieri’s 312T4 made for a potent combination – the experienced hand doing just enough to beat his ambitious team mate to the drivers’ crown as the duo finished first and second in the standings and secured the constructors’ title.

After a much less successful ‘80 season with an updated T5 machine that failed to hit the mark, Scheckter called time on his F1 career and turned to punditry, while Villeneuve continued to represent Ferrari until a tragic, fatal accident at the ’82 Belgian Grand Prix.

Ferrari claimed both world titles in 1979 with Scheckter and Villeneuve at the wheel

Piquet and Mansell

Nelson Piquet was a multiple World Champion and Nigel Mansell a multiple Grand Prix winner by the time they shared a garage at Williams in the mid-1980s – the Brazilian and Briton forming what would become one of the most fractious partnerships in F1 history.

Both drivers were in contention for the ‘86 title at the season-ending Australian Grand Prix when race leader Mansell experienced a spectacular tyre failure, Piquet pitted for fresh rubber as a precaution and McLaren rival Alain Prost snatched the championship from under their noses.

More drama followed in ‘87 thanks to Mansell putting in a now iconic move on his team mate in front of a delirious home crowd at Silverstone, but Piquet proved stronger over the course of the season – via several outspoken comments – to land a third title.

Top 10: Moments of Nigel Mansell Brilliance

Prost and Senna

Prost is another driver who could have appeared on this list several times, given the Frenchman’s spell alongside Niki Lauda at McLaren and later Mansell at Ferrari, but that two-year stint as Ayrton Senna’s team mate comes in above both.

Prost had won two drivers’ titles at McLaren when the team and new engine partner Honda brought in young hotshot Senna as his sidekick, with the world-beating 1988 MP4/4 and ‘89 MP4/5 designs putting them in a battle of their own for title glory.

After Senna edged out Prost for the ’88 championship, underlying tensions came to the fore through ‘89, ranging from an explosive early-season disagreement at the San Marino Grand Prix to their infamous coming together at the penultimate round in Japan (see the link above for more).

Despite reclaiming the title, Prost decided that enough was enough and left McLaren for Ferrari, but his rivalry with Senna was far from over – the pair going head-to-head for the ’90 title before the Brazilian’s controversial first-lap tactics at Suzuka took the relationship to a new low…

Prost vs Senna: How the infamous Suzuka 89 clash unfolded

Alonso and Hamilton

There are some obvious comparisons to make between the Prost/Senna pairing and McLaren’s 2007 line-up of Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton – the Spaniard an established two-time champion and the Briton one of the most highly rated young talents in years.

With Hamilton hitting the ground running and taking the fight to Alonso from the very first corner of their very first race as team mates, the situation soon became similarly strained, and two thirds into the campaign – via a bizarre qualifying incident in Hungary – it appeared to be beyond repair.

WATCH: From scrapping in Indianapolis to mixing it in Montreal – Alonso and Hamilton’s best battles so far

While the McLaren drivers squabbled and took points off each other, Ferrari rival Kimi Raikkonen quietly kept himself in contention, capitalising on race-ending drama for Alonso in Japan and Hamilton in China to secure the championship at the Brazil finale by a single point.

Amid the added controversy of that year’s ‘Spygate’ scandal, Alonso’s multi-year deal with McLaren was scrapped after just one season, while Hamilton continued and cemented himself at the team who had supported him since his karting days.

Best battles so far | Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton

Hamilton and Button

A few years on, McLaren made another big driver market move by partnering incumbent Hamilton with Jenson Button and creating an all-British, all-champion line-up – the former winning the title in his sophomore 2008 season and the latter as part of Brawn GP’s fairytale in 2009.

Button and Hamilton were team mates between 2010 and 2012 and, aside from the odd telemetry sheet being shared on social media and some team orders confusion over the radio, they experienced fewer obvious flashpoints than the partnerships mentioned above.

BEYOND THE GRID: Jenson Button on his 2009 world title, his toughest team mate and much more

Hamilton finished higher in the standings in two of those three campaigns, but Button remains the only driver to beat the now seven-time champion – who has since partnered Nico Rosberg, Valtteri Bottas and George Russell – in terms of total points scored during their time as team mates.

At the end of 2013, Hamilton made the bold call to join Mercedes, where he would form another strong pairing – arguably worth a place in this list – alongside former karting team mate Rosberg, while Button stayed with McLaren for several more years.

Alonso and Raikkonen

Alonso returned to Renault after his McLaren fallout but, just two years later, he headed through the Enstone exit door again – this time linking up with Felipe Massa at Ferrari and going on to finish runner-up in the championship during three of the next four seasons.

Then, for what turned out to be Alonso’s final year at the Scuderia in 2014, Ferrari re-signed former driver Raikkonen – who had made a successful F1 comeback with Lotus after a couple of years rallying and dabbling in NASCAR – to make it two champions driving their cars.

EXCLUSIVE: Kimi Raikkonen on returning to the F1 paddock, son Robin’s karting skills and his namesake Antonelli

Unfortunately, the F14 T – designed for F1’s all-new turbo hybrid power unit regulations – was not worthy of their talents, meaning Alonso and Raikkonen ended the year win-less, and Ferrari dropped to fourth position in the Constructors’ Championship.

Ferrari made headlines as the season drew to a close by poaching four-time champion Sebastian Vettel from Red Bull, with Alonso making way in another full circle moment that took him back to McLaren for their Honda reunion.