Paired for F1’s final season with V8 power, both were in the pound seats when Mercedes changed the game as the V6 turbo hybrid era dawned in 2014. The old friendship soon became strained as the stakes rose, Rosberg resorting to gamesmanship at Monaco and overt aggression at Spa to combat the irrepressible force of an all-time great.
He had no answer in 2015 as Hamilton’s career numbers continued to expand – which makes his 2016 achievement all the more impressive. Lewis won 10 races to Nico’s nine, but through guile, genuine speed and some bad luck for the three-time title winner, Rosberg held his nerve to join his old man as a world champion.
His decision to then immediately retire cured a worsening headache for team chief Toto Wolff, given the tattered state of the relationship between his two champions. Another example of bitter irony behind the soubriquet of ‘team-mate’.
Alain Prost and champion Niki Lauda in Rio for Round 1 of ’85
LAT Images
4. Niki Lauda + Alain Prost 1984-85
Win rate: 56%
Win count: 6 + 12 out of 32 GPs
Two drivers’ titles
Two constructors’ titles
We’ve previously voted these two as the ‘greatest’ team-mate rivals [The enemy within, January 2024) – another contentious term – and they score highly here too as the best of team-mates. That they famously got on so well again makes them a breath of fresh air, for a far more harmonious run of success compared to other examples on this list. Well, at least between the drivers, we mean. Ron Dennis’s declining relationships with both Niki Lauda and designer John Barnard eroded and shortened the lifespan of this iteration of the ultimate 1980s superteam.
Austria, later in ’85 – and Prost is now McLaren’s leading driver
DPPI
This was a different Lauda to the peak version who led Ferrari through its mid-70s pomp. Ruffled at first by Prost’s arrival from Renault – John Watson, while quick, was so much easier to live with – Lauda’s famous pragmatism became his greatest strength. He quickly accepted that going toe-to-toe on pure speed was a waste of time, so focused on maximising his scoring potential. Rather than grind his teeth at the half-point defeat in 1984, magnanimous Prost proved forever grateful at the lessons he learned. They’d come in handy for another ‘big beast’ team-mate later in the decade.
In their second season together, there was no contest, although Lauda at least took a 25th and final GP win at Zandvoort. This time he walked away (as a driver) for good as Prost ripped the monkey from his back to become the champion he always was.
Juan Manuel Fangio followed by Alfa team-mate ‘Nino’ Farina, Silverstone, 1951
Getty Images
3. Juan Manuel Fangio + Giuseppe Farina 1950-51
Win rate: 77%
Win count: 6 + 4 out of 13 GPs
Two drivers’ world titles
In his book Fangio by Fangio, The Maestro admitted he was left “bitter” by the mechanical problems that allowed ‘Nino’ Farina – a man he referred to as his friend – to beat him to the inaugural world championship in 1950. “Some observers, in whispers, called attention to those repeated, too regular breakdowns, saying they happened too often to be mere chance,” he wrote. “I refused to listen to such guesswork.” Didn’t stop him pointing it out!
The pair were joined by pre-war grand prix ace Luigi Fagioli to form Alfa Romeo’s ‘three Fs’, and Fangio described the news of a world championship coming into being as “electrifying”. Then he “nearly had a stroke” when he opened a telegram from the great marque inviting him to join its team.
1950 BRDC International Trophy
Getty Images
Farina carried a reputation into battles. Fangio described him as “loco” in an interview with Nigel Roebuck. “I hated to drive with him in traffic on the way to a race… ay, ay, ay. Of course, he killed himself in a road accident.”
In Alfa’s second and final year with the glorious 158/159, Fangio had the rising force of Ferrari and Alberto Ascari to worry about more than Farina, but had enough to achieve the first of his eventual five titles. As he told Roebuck, “In sentimental terms the Alfetta was my favourite car, because it gave me the chance to be champion for the first time.”
Fangio (No8) and Stirling Moss (No10) on their way to a 1-2 in the 1955 Dutch GP
Gilles Levent/DPPI
2. Juan Manuel Fangio + Stirling Moss 1955
Win rate: 83%
Win count: 4 + 1 out of 6 GPs
One drivers’ world title
Here’s a line-up that was a true partnership. But had it lasted beyond one season, had Mercedes-Benz raced into 1956 and beyond, how long would Stirling Moss have maintained his unquestioning deference to the driver he respected beyond all others?
The master-and-apprentice narrative was neatly framed within one near-perfect Formula 1 season. Only the Monaco Grand Prix escaped the silver train, when both Fangio and Moss dropped out to the benefit of Maurice Trintignant.
1-2 was reversed at Aintree a month later
Gilles Levent/DPPI
Fangio recalled first meeting and being impressed by Moss at the Bari GP in 1951 (despite lapping his HWM twice). Five years later, Moss was “that tenacious British rival, one of the best I ever drove against”.
In a sports car, Moss already had Fangio’s measure. In F1… well, there was so little between them. Moss appeared content to follow in the Maestro’s wheel tracks that summer. “Fangio was my strongest reason for going to Mercedes,” Stirling would tell our own Rob Widdows in 2007. “I would have done anything for him, I had that much respect for the man. For me, it was the same sort of respect I had for my father, actually. I loved the man, in a different way from my father. But yes, I loved the man.”
Our top team-mates at the close of the 1988 season – a win Down Under for Prost, but the title was Ayrton Senna’s
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1. Ayrton Senna + Alain Prost 1988-89
Win rate: 78%
Win count: 14 + 11 out of 32 GPs
Two drivers’ world titles
Two constructors’ world titles
All eyes were on Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost during their incendiary two years together at McLaren, and their own were focused solely on each other too.
Prost out in Japan 1989; Senna DSQ
LAT
In terms of titles it ended as a draw, before Prost felt compelled to leave for Ferrari. But there’s no doubting who had the upper hand in terms of race wins and, more emphatically, poles (13-2 in Senna’s favour, both seasons). Prost focused on finding speed when it counted most. “When he [Senna] impressed me was in qualifying sometimes,” Prost told Motor Sport in 2024 – before adding with iron defiance: “Never in race conditions – never. In race conditions, in the warm-up, most of the time I was quicker than him.”
Today, young Kimi Antonelli and George Russell have become the latest team-mates to be pitched into a battle for the world title. Already, there are signs of tension (see their edgy battle in Canada) and Toto Wolff might well be getting Hamilton/Rosberg flashbacks. As we’ve seen, it is possible for team-mates to be friends as well as rivals. But not often, and usually not for long.