Google is founded and Titanic cleans up at the Oscars – What was happening in the world when McLaren last won the constructors' title

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SUZUKA, JAPAN - NOVEMBER 01:  GP von JAPAN 1998, Suzuka; Dr. Juergen HUBBERT/Vorstand, Weltmeister

With six races remaining in the 2024 season, McLaren currently lead the constructors’ standings by 41 points from Red Bull, having overtaken the Milton Keynes outfit at the top following Round 17 in Azerbaijan.

This marked the first time that the Woking squad had held P1 in the teams’ table since March 2014 – but, should they hold that position until the season’s end and win the championship, it will herald the end of a 26-year wait to do so.

READ MORE: ‘I couldn’t ask for a better boss’ – Norris opens up on how ‘integral’ Stella dealt with McLaren team orders talks

Yes, McLaren’s last constructors’ title came on November 1 1998 at the Japanese Grand Prix, with Mika Hakkinen claiming his eighth win of the campaign – and the team’s ninth – to seal his debut drivers’ championship as well as the teams’ crown.

But what else was happening in the world when the papaya outfit claimed their eighth constructors’ championship? Let’s take a trip down memory lane to find out…

SUZUKA, JAPAN - NOVEMBER 01:  GP von JAPAN 1998, Suzuka; Weltmeister Mika HAEKKINEN/FIN - McLaren

Hakkinen took his eighth win of the 1998 season with McLaren at the Japanese Grand Prix, clinching both the drivers' and constructors' titles in the process

How F1 looked entering into 1998

At the start of the 1998 campaign, Jacques Villeneuve was the reigning world champion, having beaten Michael Schumacher to the 1997 title following an infamous collision at the season finale in Jerez which resulted in Schumacher being disqualified from the championship.

Villeneuve’s Williams team, meanwhile, had claimed their second consecutive constructors’ title ahead of Ferrari and Benetton – with McLaren down in fourth.

READ MORE: From March to Red Bull – How long did it take Newey to make an impact at his previous F1 teams?

However, there was change happening at the Woking outfit; Adrian Newey had joined from Williams as their new Technical Director and, while he had arrived too late to influence the team’s 1997 car, he focused on the MP4/13 for 1998 – which would go on to become a dominant force and bring the squad both championships.

For Williams, 1998 proved to be a winless campaign, with McLaren and Ferrari taking every victory bar one after Damon Hill scored his final F1 win for Jordan at the Belgian Grand Prix.

BELGIUM - AUGUST 13:  GP von BELGIEN 1998, Spa, Francochamps; SIEGEREHRUNG 2. Ralf SCHUMACHER/GER,

Damon Hill claimed his final F1 victory at the 1998 Belgian Grand Prix, where he was joined on the podium by Jordan team mate Ralf Schumacher and Sauber's Jean Alesi

Early days for our current champions

One quarter of today’s grid had not yet been born in 1998. McLaren’s current pairing of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri were yet to arrive into the world, as were their fellow 2024 drivers Zhou Guanyu, Yuki Tsunoda and Franco Colapinto.

But what of those who were around back then? Coincidentally, there were three world champions on the grid at the beginning of 1998 – Schumacher, Hill and Villeneuve – which marks the same number of title winners that are active in 2024 – step forward Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen.

READ MORE: From championship glory with one race win to triumphing by a single point – The most dramatic drivers’ title comebacks in F1 history

So what were the champions of today doing back in 1998? Well, Alonso, Hamilton and Verstappen were 17, 13 and one years old respectively, so Verstappen’s racing career would not start for another few years.

Alonso had been climbing the ranks in karting world championships and would go on to make his single-seater debut in Formula Nissan in 1999.

Hamilton, meanwhile, had also been impressing in karting, so much so that he joined the McLaren Young Driver Development Programme in 1998 – three years after famously telling Ron Dennis at an awards ceremony that he would one day drive one of his cars. The rest is history.

Drives like the one seen in the video below were helping the Briton to catch the eye, with the youngster going from the back of the field to win a Formula Junior Intercontinental karting race at Buckmore Park in Kent, England.

FULL RACE: Lewis Hamilton's epic 1998 karting victory

Elsewhere in the world of sport

In football, Arsenal had won the Premier League title in the 1997/98 season – the first full campaign for manager Arsene Wenger, who had also become the first manager from outside of the United Kingdom to win a league title in the country. They had also taken victory in the FA Cup.

The London team would, however, go on to lose in the Premier League to Manchester United by one point in the 1998/99 campaign.

READ MORE: 'He's got the ingredients' – 1996 world champion Damon Hill picks the title winners of the future

On the world stage, the FIFA World Cup had taken place from June to July, with host country France beating Brazil 3-0 in the final to prove victorious.

Elsewhere in the summer of 1998, Pete Sampras had won the men’s singles at Wimbledon, marking the fifth of his seven wins in the championship, while Jana Novotna succeeded in the women’s singles.

Over in the United States, the 1998 Super Bowl had seen the Denver Broncos triumph over the Green Bay Packers to take their first victory. The team has since gone on to be part-owned by none other than Lewis Hamilton, who joined the franchise in 2022.

SAN DIEGO, CA - JANUARY 25:  John Elway #7 of the Denver Broncos turns to hand the ball off to a

The Denver Broncos beat the Green Bay Packers to win the Super Bowl XXXII by 31-24

What were we watching and listening to?

At the 1998 Oscars, Titanic had scooped a total of 11 awards including Best Picture and Best Original Song for Celine Dion’s My Heart Will Go On. This marks the highest number of prizes won by a single film at the ceremony, a record the movie shares with Ben-Hur (1959) and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003).

Television-wise, the fifth season of Friends had recently hit screens, with the season-opener attracting 31.12 million viewers in the US. The sitcom would go on to run for a further five series until its finale in 2004. Other shows attracting high viewing figures in 1998 included ER and Frasier.

READ MORE: ‘These drivers take it right to the edge’ – Producer Jerry Bruckheimer on why he was so keen to make ‘F1’ movie

The song at number 1 in the UK charts when McLaren took the title was Believe by Cher, which spent a total of seven weeks at the top and became the UK’s best-selling single of the year.

And Monica held the top spot of the US Billboard charts with The First Night, several months after duetting with Brandy on another one of the year’s biggest songs, The Boy Is Mine.

NEW YORK, UNITED STATES:  Celine Dion performs the song "Tell Him" from the motion picture

The film Titanic scooped a number of awards in 1998, including the Oscar for Best Original Song for Celine Dion’s My Heart Will Go On

A new era of technology

Two months before McLaren scooped the 1998 constructors’ championship, one of the team’s modern-day sponsors was born. Google was founded, with the company’s search engine launched for the first time.

Elsewhere in technology, the first downloadable mobile ringtone service had been created in Finland. The world had not yet experienced emojis, though, with those not being released until the following year.

READ MORE: Formula 1 and The LEGO Group build partnership from 2025

And gamers were getting their hands on the new Gameboy Color for the first time, while F1 fans would soon be playing Formula 1 98 on the PlayStation.

Nowadays F1 24 is the latest official game to bring the sport to life on a console – but will McLaren's dreams of winning the constructors' this season go beyond virtual reality? Only time will tell...

SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE - SEPTEMBER 22: Race winner Lando Norris of Great Britain and McLaren and

Piastri and Norris had not yet been born when McLaren last won the constructors' title – but can they help the team to achieve it again 26 years later?

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