Car Articles

Read articles on cars and car industry. Get fully updated on all information related to cars. Read exciting happening in the Indian and Global Car industry, tips to help you and more...

Old Articles

Part 1 of F1 World Drivers Champions

Formula One, the greatest of all Motorsports and the most televised event of the world, is a darling of the speed lovers. This sport has produced a lot of talents who are an inspiration of the future wannabe racers. Formula One is a display of guts, glory, blood, sweat and tears of man combined with the raw thrust of the flame-spitting engines of cars. We here try to present to you the list of the 30 legendary F1 racers who have won the F1 World Drivers' Championship title since the inception of the first ever Formula One World Championship in 1950. We will be giving the second and the third list of F1 drivers who held this rare feat till date in our subsequent articles.

Here are the names of the first ten F1 World Drivers' Champions.

Nino Farina: 1950

Giuseppe Antonio 'Nino' Farina was the first ever Formula One World Champion. He was noted in the history of Grand Prix motorsports for his 'straight-arm' driving style.

Nino Farina secured the Italian Drivers' Champion three years in a row from 1937 to 1939. He then went on to take his first major race win, at the 1940 Tripoli Grand Prix in Libya. Post World War II, Farina took a win at the 1948 Monaco Grand Prix. When the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile announced the inaugural World Championship for 1950, Farina drove the invincible 158 Alfetta cars. Nino Farina took 3 wins from the 7 races of the 1950 season, securing himself the first ever World Championship. He had in total 34 Grand Prix Entries, 5 GP wins and 5 pole positions to his credit.

Alberto Ascari: 1952, 1953

Alberto Ascari was an Italian racing driver and twice the undisputed Formula One World Champion. He is one of only two Italian Formula One World Champions in the history of the motor racing. He in his racing history had 32 Grand Prix Entries, 14 Pole Positions and 13 Grand Prix Wins.

Ascari was famous for careful precision and finely-judged accuracy that made him one of the safest drivers. He won his first Grand Prix race in Sanremo, Italy in 1948 and took second place in the British Grand Prix the same year. His biggest success came after he joined Villoresi on the Ferrari team and won three more races the next year. Ferrari team made its World Championship debut at Monte Carlo in 1950. Ascari finished 2nd in the race and later in the year shared a 2nd place at the first World Championship race at Monza. He was only 5th in the championship standings however. He won his first World Championship F1 race the following season on the Nürburgring circuit and added a win at Monza, finishing runner up.

Ascari won all six races in Europe in 1952 and recorded the fastest lap in each race. He won three more consecutive races to start the 1953 season, giving him nine straight wins before his streak ended when he finished 4th in France. He earned two more wins later in the year to give himself a second consecutive World Championship.

Juan Manuel Fangio: 1951, 1954-1957

This Argentine has to his credit 5 World Championships, 51 Grand Prix Entries and 23 Grand Prix Wins with 27 Pole Positions.

He won five Formula One World Driver's Championships and runner-up twice with four different teams in seven full Formula One seasons. His record stood for 46 years until Michael Schumacher broke it. He is still considered as the greatest driver of all time. He is the only Argentine driver to have won the Argentine GP, having won it four times in his career. Juan Manuel Fangio entered the F1 in 1948 French GP at Reims. He won his last driving title in 1957 at the age 46 years. After his series of back-to-back championships he retired in 1958, following the French GP.

Mike Hawthorn: 1958

John Michael Hawthorn made his Formula One debut at the 1952 Belgian Grand Prix, finishing an impressive 4th place. He won his first Grand Prix, after nine attempts, at Reims, France in 1953. In 1955, Hawthorn was the winner of the 24 hours of Le Mans race, despite being involved in the terrible crash that killed 82 spectators. He was the winner of the 1958 Formula One Championship. After winning the title, Hawthorn immediately announced his retirement from Formula One. He had 45 Grand Prix Entries and 3 GP wins and 4 pole positions to his credit.

Phil Hill: 1961

Phil Hill was the only American driver to win the Formula One World Drivers' Championship. He won 3 Grand Prix in 49 Entries 49 and had 6 Pole Positions.

Philip Toll Hill made his debut in the French Grand Prix at Reims France in 1958 driving a Maserati and the same year, he became the first American winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. He began driving full-time for the Ferrari Formula One team in 1959, earning three podium finishes and fourth place in the Driver's Championship. In 1960 he won the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, the first Grand Prix win for an American driver in nearly forty years, since Jimmy Murphy won the 1921 French Grand Prix. Hill won the Belgian Grand Prix and clinched the championship in 1961.

John Surtees: 1964

John Surtees is the only person to have won World Championships on both two and four wheels. He has bagged 1 World Championship and 112 Grand Prix Entries and 6 Grand Prix Wins.

At the age of 26 in 1960, Surtees switched from motorcycles to cars, making his Formula 1 debut racing for Lotus in the Monaco Grand Prix in Monte Carlo. He finished with a second place in his second Formula One race, at the 1960 British Grand Prix, and a pole position at his third race, the 1960 Portuguese Grand Prix. He moved to Scuderia Ferrari in 1963 and won the World Championship in 1964.

John Surtees retired from Formula One racing in 1972. John Surtees was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1996. The FIM honoured him as a Grand Prix "Legend" in 2003.

Jim Clark: 1963, 1965

Jim Clark was a British Formula One racing driver who won two World Championships, in 1963 and 1965. At the time of his death, he had won 25 Grand Prix races, 33 Grand Prix from 72 GP and achieved 33 pole positions. He had the maximum number of titles and more pole positions than any other driver. He also competed in the Indianapolis 500 five times, and won it once, in 1965.

The Times placed Clark at the top of a list of the greatest Formula One drivers.

Jack Brabham: 1959, 1960, 1966

Sir John Arthur "Jack" Brabham is a former racing driver who was Formula One champion in 1959, 1960 and 1966. He has 14 Grands Prix and participated in 126 GP. He has 13 pole positions to his credit.

Brabham started racing midget cars in 1948. This led him going to the United Kingdom to further his racing career. Sir Brabham made his Grand Prix debut at the 1955 British Grand Prix. His first F1 World Championship race victory was in the 1959 Monaco Grand Prix.

Brabham was a founder of the Brabham racing team that he later sold to Bernie Ecclestone. He was knighted in 1985 for his contribution to British motorsport.

Denny Hulme: 1967

Denis Clive "Denny" Hulme was a New Zealand car racer, the 1967 Formula One World Champion for the Brabham team. He had only 1 pole position and 112 Grand Prix Entries and 8 Grand Prix titles.

Hulme later raced for McLaren in Formula One. He was CanAm champion in 1968 (driving the McLaren M8A) and 1970 (driving the McLaren M8D "Batmobile"). He drove the McLaren M8F in 1971. Hulme retired from Formula One at the end of the 1974 season but continued to race Australian Touring Cars. He was the first former Formula One champion to die of natural causes. He suffered a heart attack while driving a BMW M3 during the Bathurst 1000 on 4th October 1992.

Graham Hill: 1962, 1968

Norman Graham Hill was a two-time Formula One World Champion. He is the only driver to win the Triple Crown of Motorsport. He made his Formula One debut at the 1958 Monaco Grand Prix, but retired with a halfshaft failure. Hill joined BRM in 1960 and won the world championship with them in 1962. In 1968, he won his second world championship. A crash at the 1969 United States Grand Prix broke his legs and interrupted his career.