The times McLaren came closest to breaking 25-year constructors’ title drought

In a sport that loves its statistics, there are few more remarkable stats to consider than this: McLaren has not won a single Formula 1 constructors’ championship title during the lives of its two current drivers, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri.

For one of Formula 1’s most successful and most loved teams, McLaren have only tasted championship glory of any kind a single time in the last 25 years – when Lewis Hamilton claimed the drivers’ title in 2008.

Despite over 4,000 points scored, 67 grand prix victories, 64 pole positions and 214 podium finishes over the 25 full seasons since their last constructors’ crown in 1998, the ultimate team prize in motorsport has eluded McLaren for an entire generation. But this year looks like it will finally be the one that delivers McLaren their long-awaited ninth world constructors’ championship title.

With only three rounds left, McLaren are first in the standings with an advantage of more than 30 points over closest rivals Ferrari. As good as it may look for the team from Woking, they are almost certain to lose the drivers’ title to Max Verstappen and Red Bull. They also have plenty of history of coming close but just missing out over the last 25 seasons. Here are the years in which they came closest…

1999 – 2nd – 4 points from championship

The major technical regulations changes that were brought into the sport in 1998 – narrower cars, grooved tyres and many other modifications – were designed to slow down cars which the FIA deemed were now becoming dangerously fast. Having hired Adrian Newey from Williams in 1997, McLaren arrived in Melbourne for the opening round of the 1998 season with their Newey-designed MP4-13 and destroyed the opposition.

While Ferrari quickly caught up and engaged McLaren in what would be the first of many head-to-head duels between the two powerhouses for the championship, McLaren won nine rounds to Ferrari’s six and managed to secure their first constructors’ title since 1991 in the final race at Suzuka, where Mika Hakkinen also won his first drivers’ title.

Hakkinen’s defence of his title in 1999 proved to be a challenging one, retiring five times throughout the 16 round championship including putting himself out while in the lead twice at Imola and Monza. Despite Ferrari’s team leader Michael Schumacher breaking his leg in a nasty crash at Silverstone and missing the next six races, stand-in Mika Salo added ten points to Ferrari’s tally over that time while Eddie Irvine proved more of a nuisance than many expected.

With David Coulthard suffering from reliability problems throughout the season limiting the points he could score, Hakkinen and McLaren arrived in Japan for the final round with a four point deficit in both championships. While Hakkinen was flawless in the race, passing Schumacher to lead from the opening lap, Coulthard suffered hydraulic problems midway through the race which forced him into another retirement. Hakkinen held off Schumacher to clinch his second successive title, but Ferrari’s double podium meant McLaren lost the constructors’ championship by four points.

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2000 – 2nd – 18 points from championship

The following season saw the third successive fight between McLaren and Ferrari at the front of the field, but this time it was the Scuderia who had the advantage. McLaren’s seven victories over the year could not match the ten by Schumacher and new Ferrari team mate Rubens Barrichello.

Hakkinen took the lead in the championship with back-to-back wins in Hungary and Belgium, before a hat trick of wins allowed Schumacher to clinch the title with a race to spare in Suzuka. McLaren were only 13 points back from Ferrari, meaning they still had a slim chance to win the constructors’ title in the final race in Malaysia, but required a very poor result for Ferrari to snatch it from their rivals.

Sadly for McLaren, they could not stop Schumacher from winning the season finale. That meant that Ferrari had won their first constructors’ title since 1983 and McLaren had been beaten for the second successive season.

2005 – 2nd – 9 points from championship

Ferrari dominated the early 2000s, with McLaren fading away from their rivals. They came close to a drivers’ championship with Kimi Raikkonen pushing Schumacher to the final round of the year in 2003, but they were beaten by both Ferrari and Williams in the constructors’ table.

After a relatively poor season in 2004 with just a single race victory at Spa-Francorchamps, the regulations changed again in 2005 to reduce downforce levels and, again, make the cars slower, introducing a requirement that drivers must use a single set of tyres for an entire race. The two teams that emerged at the top of the field were McLaren, with drivers Raikkonen and Juan Pablo Montoya, and Renault who boasted a line up of Giancarlo Fisichella and Fernando Alonso.

The two teams dominated the season, winning every round except for the controversial United States Grand Prix at Indianapolis. But while a strong start to the season by Alonso proved too much for Raikkonen to chase down, McLaren took the fight for the constructors’ down to the final round in China. Alonso took pole position and converted it into his seventh victory of 2005, to add the constructors’ championship for Renault to his drivers’ title. McLaren missed out by nine points.

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2007 – 11th – 204 points from championship

The most infamous season in McLaren’s history and the one that should have been their last title. All-new driver line up Fernando Alonso and rookie sensation Lewis Hamilton combined for 218 points, which was the most of any team all season. However, McLaren were disqualified from the constructors’ championship after one of the biggest scandals in the sport’s history.

Another season-long battle with Ferrari saw the fight for the drivers’ championship come down to a three-way showdown between the two McLaren drivers and Raikkonen. Raikkonen won the season finale and, with it, the championship title.

But all the drama was focused on McLaren. Throughout the course of the year, major tensions between Alonso and Hamilton resulted in several flashpoints, but McLaren were always in the fight for victory every weekend in spite of this.

However, any hopes of the constructors’ title were lost when the team received an unprecedented $100 million fine and stripped of all points accrued that season after the FIA found them to be in illegal possession of confidential Ferrari car data, which became known as the ‘Spygate’ scandal. Ultimately, all their victories from the year came to nothing.

2008 – 2nd – 21 points from championship

The most recent season that a McLaren driver won the world championship was also Lewis Hamilton’s first world title back in 2008. With Alonso departing to Renault after his falling out with the team, Heikki Kovalainen was brought in to replace him.

Hamilton fought a tense battle for the championship with, naturally, the Ferrari drivers of Felipe Massa and Raikkonen. But Kovalainen could not seem to match the same level of performance as his team mate, scoring just over half of Hamilton’s points tally over the season.

The drivers’ title came down to a mesmerising final race at Interlagos, which Massa won but Hamilton ultimately came out of with his first championship title. But while Massa’s victory did secure the constructors’ crown for his team, it was hardly a consolation prize for driver or for Ferrari.

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The 15 seasons since

Since Hamilton’s victory, it has been a long and challenging period of drought for one of F1’s most successful teams. While they remained competitive over the following seasons – finishing inside the top three in each of the next for seasons – they were never close to the title as Brawn and Red Bull proved to be far too strong.

A move to Honda power units for 2015 was disastrous and saw McLaren fall from one of F1’s best teams to one of its worst. Moving to Renault power units helped get McLaren back on track, finishing third in the constructors’ championship in 2020, before they returned to Mercedes power and won their first race in almost ten years in the 2021 Italian Grand Prix.

McLaren struggled with the ground effect regulations introduced in 2022 at first while Red Bull soon established their dominance once again. But a major upgrade mid way through the 2023 season saw McLaren jump to being Red Bull’s closest contenders. Now in 2024, McLaren are the team to beat once again. They have taken five race victories – three for Lando Norris and two for Oscar Piastri – and currently sit atop the constructors’ championship on 593 points, making this easily their most successful season since 2012.

While Norris’s chances of beating Max Verstappen to the drivers’ title look to have ended, they are the clear favourites to finally clinch their first constructors’ crown since 1998. How fitting it is that the team best placed to deny them are not Red Bull but Ferrari, historically their fiercest rivals. Will Ferrari be able to overcome the 36 point deficit to McLaren over the final three rounds to deny them once again, or can McLaren finally bring the constructors’ trophy back to Woking for the first time in their drivers’ lifetimes?

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