Each current F1 team’s greatest ever driver from Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes to Michael Schumacher at Ferrari

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Certain drivers will always be associated with one team due to the success that they had together, like Michael Schumacher amid Ferrari’s era of dominance in the 2000s.

Schumacher joined Ferrari in 1996 after winning back-to-back drivers’ titles with Benetton in the previous two years. It took the German time to turn the Scuderia around with the help of Jean Todt and Ross Brawn, before he won five titles in a row from 2000 to 2004.

Red Bull have also enjoyed dominant eras with two different drivers, after taking Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen to four successive titles respectively. Verstappen’s successes with Red Bull even put him in the conversation for being the greatest driver of all time.

Every team on the grid has had varying levels of success, especially as some manufacturers regularly change their names – not just their liveries. Some teams even have multiple world champions to choose from when deciding their greatest driver of all time.

Red Bull Racing – Sebastian Vettel

This might be a slightly controversial choice considering that Verstappen has won more races for Red Bull than Vettel did, and they both won the F1 drivers’ championship four times with the Milton Keynes team.

However, Verstappen is still just shy of eclipsing Vettel as the greatest Red Bull driver of all time. While Dutch legend Verstappen beat the might of Lewis Hamilton with Mercedes in 2021, he did not face a clear rival in 2022 or 2023 thanks to the strength of Red Bull’s car.

German icon Vettel, on the other hand, achieved his domination of the sport at a time when Fernando Alonso with Ferrari, Jenson Button with McLaren and Kimi Raikkonen with Lotus were all challenging him.

Vettel also achieved his success with Red Bull after helping the team learn what it took to compete at the top of the championship. But he couldn’t replicate his successes with Red Bull during his time with Ferrari or Aston Martin before retiring in 2022.

Mercedes – Lewis Hamilton

When Hamilton made his move from McLaren to Mercedes in 2013, there were plenty of eyebrows raised. Nico Rosberg and the legendary Schumacher had not pulled up any trees with their performances for the Silver Arrows from 2010 to 2012.

However, Hamilton followed his solitary race victory in 2013 at the Hungarian GP with six drivers’ championship victories over the next seven years.

Rosberg disrupted his dominance in 2016, and then Hamilton narrowly missed out on breaking Schumacher’s record haul in 2021 when Verstappen controversially pipped him to the line at the season-ending Abu Dhabi GP.

Hamilton closed out his Mercedes career in 2024 after triggering a release clause in his contract to join Ferrari in 2025. The Stevenage-born driver stunned the Formula 1 world in February 2024 when he announced he had signed a multi-year contract with the Scuderia.

Ferrari – Michael Schumacher

Schumacher is undoubtedly one of the greatest, if not the greatest, drivers in Formula 1’s storied history.

His five titles with Ferrari at the start of the 2000s meant an entire generation of racing fans grew up being able to instinctively recognise the German and Italian national anthems.

Hamilton and, almost certainly, Verstappen will both finish their careers with more race wins than Schumacher, but that’s mainly due to the expanded racing calendar.

However, Schumacher is the most iconic driver for Formula 1’s most iconic team, and it will take something special for anyone to ever challenge his legacy with the Scuderia.

McLaren – Ayrton Senna

After spells with Toleman and Lotus, Ayrton Senna dominated Formula 1 for several years with McLaren.

Only failing to finish in the top two of the drivers’ championship during his six years with the British-based outfit, Senna confirmed his place among Formula 1’s all-time greats by winning more than a third of the races he started with McLaren.

His performances in qualifying were particularly impressive, and to win three titles during one of the strongest periods in the sport’s history shows what a superb combination Senna and McLaren were.

Aston Martin – Fernando Alonso

Fernando Alonso enjoyed his best spell in Formula 1 with Renault, for whom he won two drivers’ championships.

However, the Spaniard’s switch to Aston Martin in 2023 couldn’t have gone any better for the Silverstone-based team. Alonso even briefly looked like Verstappen’s closest title rival in 2023, with six podium finishes through the first eight rounds.

Despite Aston Martin being an established name in motor racing, their time in F1 has been sporadic, to say the least. After competing in five races in 1959 and 1960, the team returned to the grid in 2021 when Lawrence Stroll rebranded Racing Point.

Lance Stroll has been a pillar of the Aston Martin team in their latest period on the grid, but Alonso has shown the Canadian how it’s done since he arrived in Silverstone.

Alpine – Esteban Ocon

Alpine officially joined Formula 1 in 2021 when the Renault Group rebranded their team to promote the French sports car brand. So, for this feature, F1 Oversteer has overlooked the Enstone outfit’s incarnations as Toleman, Benetton, Lotus and Renault.

That, unfortunately, means that plenty of more successful Formula 1 seasons have to be ignored, including Alonso winning Renault’s only F1 titles as a constructor in 2005 and 2006.

Instead, Esteban Ocon emerges as the most successful driver to have raced for Alpine, having recorded their only ever Grand Prix win so far in the 2021 Hungarian GP. The Frenchman also made further sporadic trips to the podium before he departed Enstone in 2025.

Williams – Nigel Mansell

Nigel Mansell made his name in Formula 1 with Lotus to begin with, but it was his spell at Williams that brought the Briton most of his success.

During two spells with the team, he won plenty of races and returned to the team to finally win a title in 1992 after narrowly missing out in 1986 and 1987 to Alain Prost and Nelson Piquet.

He finally won the championship in 1992 and earned 28 of his 31 career wins with the famous British team, dominating the likes of Riccardo Patrese, Schumacher and Senna that year.

Williams are a team synonymous with Formula 1, and you could argue they should have enjoyed more success in the sport than they have. Especially in the modern era, Williams have fallen far from the lofty heights they reached in the 1980s and 1990s.

Racing Bulls – Pierre Gasly

Unlike Alpine, who want to diversify from their time as Renault, Racing Bulls are an evolution of the same team they were whilst called Toro Rosso, AlphaTauri and briefly just RB.

Despite being Red Bull’s junior team, Racing Bulls have also managed to get a couple of race wins under their various identities.

One of those was delivered by the ‘super’ Pierre Gasly, who secured an emotional maiden F1 victory in the 2020 Italian Grand Prix at Monza.

After a brief stint with Red Bull in 2019, Gasly returned to the Faenza outfit under their iconic team principal, Franz Tost, before he finally moved on in the 2023 season by joining Alpine.

Haas – Kevin Magnussen

Haas are now one of the most established teams on the grid, such is the nature of some of the name changes that regularly occur in the series.

Since their inception in 2016, Haas are still waiting to achieve their first podium, although Kevin Magnussen did achieve their only pole position to date at the 2022 Sao Paulo GP.

Magnussen enjoyed a decent Formula 1 career with the American team, to rival Romain Grosjean for being Haas’ greatest driver to date.

Grosjean immediately helped to lead Haas from their debut season in 2016 and regularly threatened the podium places during his five years with the team.

Magnussen also brought crucial leadership to Haas when he re-joined the team after a year away in 2022, before departing once more at the end of 2024.

Audi – TBD

Audi joined the Formula 1 grid in 2026 when the German brand took over Sauber to debut in the pinnacle of motorsport as a fully-fledged factory team. So, while Audi are an evolution of Sauber after taking over their factory in Switzerland, they are a new team.

The Sauber name had been a part of the Formula 1 grid since 1993, and they had seen some talented drivers pass through Hinwil. But only Robert Kubica ever won a Grand Prix with Sauber, making him easily their greatest F1 driver of all time.

Kubica emerged as a potential title contender during the 2008 season as Sauber operated as BMW’s factory entry. The Polish driver took full advantage of the partnership to win the Canadian GP, just one year on from having a huge high-speed crash in Montreal.

Cadillac – TBD

The Formula 1 grid grew to 11 teams for the first time in a decade in 2026 as General Motors brought its Cadillac brand to the party.

GM even established Cadillac as an entirely new entity, rather than buying their way into Formula 1 by taking over an established outfit.

The Cadillac F1 team also favoured experience for their arrival, so they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas to lead their debut in 2026.