Six racers who won their maiden F1 titles alongside champion team mates

With a new F1 season beckoning for 2025, many eyes are lasered in on the all-star line-up at Ferrari of Charles Leclerc and seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton.

Let’s also not forget four-time world champion Max Verstappen has a new team mate at Red Bull in Liam Lawson too. The New Zealander will have race-winning machinery at his disposal for the first time, although expectations will be dampened a touch by his relative inexperience.

IN NUMBERS: How Verstappen’s team mates fared against him with Lawson the latest to step up

These major line-up changes got us thinking about the drivers who became world champion for the first time while having a former F1 title-winner as a team mate – something the likes of Leclerc and Lawson would dearly love to emulate.

Throughout F1’s 75 years of history it has only happened on six occasions, though 1982 champion Keke Rosberg did have 1978 champion Mario Andretti as his team mate for one race that year – but we’re not counting that. Here’s our list of the six who achieved it…

Formula 1 header template (10).png — Leclerc and Lawson will be hoping to emulate the following names on this list

Juan Manuel Fangio (1951)

The great Juan Manuel Fangio was the first driver to achieve this feat though – granted – the championship had only entered its second ever season at that point.

Italian Giuseppe Farina had become Formula 1’s inaugural world champion in 1950 for Alfa Romeo, beating his Argentine team mate Fangio by three points over the course of that year. However, it was Fangio who would triumph in the following campaign, beating several drivers from Alfa Romeo’s rivals Ferrari as well as his reigning champion team mate.

That would be Alfa Romeo’s last ever championship in F1, while Fangio would go on to win four more with Maserati, Mercedes and Ferrari to cement his legendary status in the sport. He would hold the record for most F1 championships all the way until 2003, when he was finally bested by a certain Michael Schumacher.

Fangio claimed the first of his five F1 World Championships in 1951

Alberto Ascari (1952)

The sport’s third World Championship of Drivers was won by Alberto Ascari, as he became Ferrari’s first F1 world champion as well as the only Italian to win the title with the famous marque.

He extraordinarily won six of the seven races he entered that season to claim the title, with his team mate – Farina – finishing runner-up in the final standings.

Ascari would go on to seal another F1 title the following year in 1953, but would tragically lose his life during a test session for Ferrari in 1955 at Monza aged just 36.

BELGIUM - JANUARY 01: The Italian race-car driver Alberto ASCARI at the wheel of his Ferrari on — Alberto Ascari would claim the 1952 title and became Ferrari's first F1 world champion

Denny Hulme (1967)

Fast forward to 1967 and Denny Hulme was the man to seal World Championship glory – the first and so far only New Zealand driver to win the title.

He did so racing for the Brabham team, with his team mate none other than three-time champion – and the team’s founder – Jack Brabham.

Hulme would go on to race for McLaren from 1968 to 1974, with a final F1 record of eight Grand Prix wins and 33 podiums.

Formula 1 header template (9).png — Denny Hulme took the title in 1967 while racing for Brabham, with Jack Brabham as his team mate

Alain Prost (1985)

A name listed among the greats of Formula 1, Alain Prost won his first championship with McLaren in 1985 with three-time champion Niki Lauda as his team mate.

It was also a title triumph that was long in the making, with Prost finishing runner-up in the previous two seasons – famously losing out to Lauda in 1984 by just half a point. But finally Prost would become France’s first F1 champion after finishing top of the 1985 standings ahead of Michele Alboreto, with Lauda only 10th.

The Austrian would retire at the end of the season and credited Prost for sending him into retirement earlier than planned, saying: “I hated having him as a team mate. I had this perfect car, and then this French pain-in-the-ass arrives and blows me away. If he hadn’t turned up I’d have gone on for another few years.”

Prost would of course go on to seal three more titles across his career and become embroiled in even more heated title battles, including with the next name on our list…

Top 10: Moments of Alain Prost Brilliance

Ayrton Senna (1988)

A racer that needs very little introduction to F1 fans, Ayrton Senna’s first title triumph came in 1988 as he beat team mate Prost – then a two-time champion – in his first year driving for McLaren.

It was an extraordinary season of dominance for McLaren, with Senna and Prost winning 15 of the 16 races between them, as the Brazilian beat the Frenchman by just three points.

The duo of course would go down in history for having one of the sport’s most famous rivalries, with Prost becoming champion in 1989 in controversial circumstances before leaving McLaren for Ferrari, while Senna would go on to win two more championships in 1990 and 1991.

Top 10: Moments of Senna Brilliance

Nico Rosberg (2016)

The most recent driver to take his first world title with a former champion as a team mate was German Nico Rosberg, following his epic 2016 battle with Mercedes team mate Hamilton.

With the then three-time world champion Brit in search of his third consecutive title, Rosberg rose to the challenge throughout the season with the final race in Abu Dhabi acting as a championship decider.

With the German ahead by 12 points, his second-placed finish behind winner Hamilton proved to be enough to secure the world title as he and father Keke became the second father-son pairing to have won the drivers’ championship (following in the footsteps of Graham and Damon Hill).

Five days later, Rosberg would shock the world of F1 by retiring from motor racing, with Valtteri Bottas moving from Williams to fill the Mercedes vacancy alongside Hamilton.