From all-out dominance to against-the-odds comebacks – Ranking McLaren’s 10 Teams’ Championship triumphs

The Singapore Grand Prix marked a milestone moment for McLaren, the squad sealing the 10th Teams’ Championship of their long and storied history. Having so far achieved 12 wins, 28 podiums and a whopping 650 points in 2025, the Woking-based outfit wrapped up the title with six rounds of the campaign remaining.

It is doubtless an impressive feat – but how does this success compare to the team’s previous triumphant seasons? Well, we’ve taken a shot at ranking each of McLaren’s 10 Teams’ Championships, from their first in 1974 through to their latest.

As ever, this comes with the caveat that Formula 1 has undergone various changes – such as developments to the points-scoring system and the increased number races in a season – across the team’s title-winning campaigns, making comparisons tricky, but we have tried to balance statistics with sentiment in our list.

Don’t quite agree with our order? Let us know which of the team’s titles you rate as the greatest in the poll below…

10. 1985

Drivers – Niki Lauda and Alain Prost
Races – 16, Wins – 6 (37.5%), Podiums – 12 (37.5%), Points – 90

While it feels unfair to rank any title triumph at the bottom, we start with the 1985 crown. Such has been the success that McLaren have experienced in their championship-winning seasons that this campaign – in which they took victory in six out of 16 races – features one of their lower winning percentages.

Arriving into the season off the back of title glory in 1984 (more on which later), 1985 brought with it increased competition as seven drivers – from five different teams – each won races.

McLaren’s Alain Prost – who had just missed out on the Drivers’ title in 1984 to team mate Niki Lauda – emerged victorious in a total of five Grands Prix, while Lauda stood on the top step just once.

This ultimately gave the squad their third Teams’ Championship and marked the first time that they had achieved back-to-back titles.

9. 1990

Drivers – Ayrton Senna and Gerhard Berger
Races – 16, Wins – 6 (37.5%), Podiums – 18 (56.3%), Points – 121

The 1990 season marked a change in driver line-up for McLaren, with Gerhard Berger arriving to partner Ayrton Senna after tensions boiled over between the Brazilian and previous team mate Alain Prost (again, more to come on that).

Prost’s move to Ferrari saw his former team pick up fewer wins, with Senna leading the charge as he again went head-to-head with the Frenchman in the championship fight.

That battle ended in infamous style when the rivals controversially collided into the first corner at the Japanese Grand Prix, immediately putting both out of the race and handing Senna the Drivers’ crown in the process.

McLaren, meanwhile, took the Teams’ Championship with an 11-point margin from Ferrari.

8. 1991

Drivers – Ayrton Senna and Gerhard Berger
Races – 16, Wins – 8 (50%), Podiums – 18 (56.3%), Points – 139

The 1991 crown was a historic achievement for McLaren, marking the team’s fourth consecutive championship victory. This run of form was unbeaten for several years, with only Ferrari (six titles between 1999-2004) and Mercedes (eight titles between 2014-2021) bettering the record.

Amid previous rivals Ferrari falling away, reigning Drivers’ Champion Ayrton Senna kicked off his and the team’s title defence in commanding style, winning all four of the campaign’s opening races including his long-awaited first home victory in Brazil.

Despite Williams emerging as their nearest competitor as the campaign progressed, McLaren did enough to fend off the challenge and secure their seventh Teams’ title to complete a remarkable run of four back-to-back championships, while Senna clinched his third Drivers’ crown.

It would prove to be the final time that Senna became a World Champion, while McLaren would have to wait several years for their next title…

7. 1974

Drivers – Emerson Fittipaldi and Denny Hulme
Races – 15, Wins – 4 (26.7%), Podiums – 10 (33.3%), Points – 73

Statistically, McLaren’s 1974 triumph is another to feature a lower winning percentage, the squad having taken victory in four out of 15 races.

However, needless to say, this championship was an incredibly important one as it marked the first time that the team had experienced title glory since making their F1 debut back in 1966.

With the strong pairing of World Champions Emerson Fittipaldi and Denny Hulme at the wheel, McLaren finally earned a long-awaited Teams’ title, while Fittipaldi also scored the squad’s first Drivers’ crown.

Coming just four years after the death of founder Bruce McLaren, the feat was an emotional one. As Fittipaldi recounted in a McLaren interview last year: “At the time, we were 28 people, now it’s 1,000. For sure, it created even more motivation for the future. History tells us what happened next, with so many fantastic World Champions.”

6. 2024

Drivers – Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri
Races – 24, Wins – 6 (25%), Podiums – 21 (43.6%), Points – 666

On paper, the 2024 championship features McLaren’s lowest percentage of race wins across their title-winning years. But, as ever, the numbers only tell part of the story, with this triumph proving hugely significant in the papaya squad’s history.

After Red Bull collected both 2023 titles in one of the most dominant performances ever witnessed in the sport, it initially appeared that the Milton Keynes-based outfit had carried that form through by surging to a 1-2 in the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix.

McLaren finished that race well off the podium – but, after a major upgrade to the car on the weekend of Lando Norris’ debut victory in Miami, the team rapidly became a force to be reckoned with, taking the fight to Max Verstappen and Red Bull in both championships.

While the Drivers’ crown ultimately proved elusive – and the team made some strategic errors along the way – McLaren were able to keep a chasing Ferrari at bay during the Abu Dhabi season finale to secure their first Teams’ title since 1998, a feat that would scarcely have seemed believable when the squad started 2023 near the back of the field.

5. 1998

Drivers – Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard
Races – 16, Wins – 9 (56.3%), Podiums – 20 (62.5%), Points – 156

As previously mentioned, the 2024 success was McLaren’s first Teams’ crown in 26 years, with the last one prior to that also marking something of a comeback story.

Following their aforementioned 1991 victory, the squad were overhauled by Williams – and Benetton – in the seasons that followed. But a change to the technical regulations in 1998 was an opportunity that McLaren seized, with the MP4-13 proving the class of the field when the campaign got underway.

The team faced increased competition as the season progressed – with this arguably marking the start of Mika Hakkinen and Michael Schumacher’s classic rivalry as they fought for the Drivers’ Championship – and Ferrari were still in with a chance of taking the crown at the season-closing Japanese Grand Prix.

However, a flawless performance from Hakkinen at Suzuka – coupled with misfortune for Schumacher, who was forced to retire after suffering a puncture – secured both titles for McLaren. And while the squad could not make it back-to-back Teams’ Championships in 1999, Hakkinen went on to secure another Drivers’ crown.

4. 1989

Drivers – Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna
Races – 16, Wins – 10 (62.5%), Podiums – 18 (56.3%), Points – 141

As we head towards the top end of our ranking, we now move into some of McLaren’s most dominant championship successes, seasons that also brought with them some truly iconic moments – and battles – along the way.

The 1989 season marked the second year in which Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna formed the team’s line-up, a formidable pairing that had (spoiler alert) already secured title glory during the 1988 campaign.

While new regulations outlawing turbocharged engines had come into effect, McLaren appeared to have tackled the change smoothly as 1989 began, with Senna and Prost claiming six and four wins respectively amid another fierce title fight between the two.

The Drivers’ Championship ended in controversy, with Senna being disqualified from the Japanese Grand Prix for cutting a chicane after rejoining the track following a collision with Prost, a result that gave the crown to the latter. But, internal tensions aside, the duo again brought home the Teams’ title in their final campaign as team mates.

3. 2025

Drivers – Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri
Races – 24 (18 completed so far), Wins – 12 (66.7%), Podiums – 28 (77.8%), Points – 650*
*From season so far

Arguably, the dominance of McLaren in this year’s Teams’ Championship could put this success even higher in our ranking. But given that the season is still playing out – and the Drivers’ crown is crucially yet to be decided – we have opted for the number 3 spot.

While the 2024 season saw the papaya squad slowly gain momentum, there was no such process this time around, with the team immediately quick out of the blocks at the start of the 2025 campaign.

Drivers’ Championship leader Oscar Piastri and team mate Lando Norris have achieved seven and five Grand Prix wins respectively so far, which has included an impressive seven 1-2 finishes. This gave McLaren such a sizeable lead over their rivals that the Teams’ title was wrapped up in Singapore, tying with Red Bull’s 2023 record for the earliest championship win in the sport’s history.

There have been hiccups along the way – and questions remain over how the squad will handle any tensions that may linger between their drivers following that first-lap incident at Marina Bay – but McLaren’s all-round form in 2025 has been an extraordinary achievement.

2. 1984

Drivers – Niki Lauda and Alain Prost
Races – 16, Wins – 12 (75%), Podiums – 18 (56.3%), Points – 143.5

McLaren did not trouble the top of the standings during the late 1970s, the squad going on to end the 1980 season down in ninth place. However, after joining the likes of Ferrari in switching to a turbocharged engine, their fortunes started to turn around into the ‘80s, culminating in a stunning 1984 campaign.

With Alain Prost returning to partner Niki Lauda – forming another one of the team’s strongest line-ups – the pair quickly became a dominant force at the wheel of the MP4/2, a car that brought them an incredible 12 victories in 16 races including a run of seven consecutive wins in the second half of the year.

While Prost had outscored Lauda on victories – claiming seven triumphs over Lauda’s five – the Frenchman ultimately lost out on the Drivers’ Championship by just half a point to the Austrian, meaning that his debut title had to wait until 1985.

He did, however, get to experience championship glory in the Teams’ category, McLaren storming to the crown – their first in 10 years – on 143.5 points. To put that dominance into perspective, closest challengers Ferrari had amassed only 57.5 in comparison.

1. 1988

Drivers – Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna
Races – 16, Wins – 15 (93.8%), Podiums – 25 (78.1%), Points – 199

It is hard to argue with the notion that the 1988 season marked McLaren’s greatest triumph, a campaign in which an all-star driver line-up – and a brewing rivalry between them – was paired with a benchmark-setting car to create magic.

After two years of finishing second in the championship, the Woking-based squad bolstered their chances of changing that statistic with the MP4/4, a Honda-powered challenger often touted as one of the greatest cars in Formula 1 history.

With race winner Ayrton Senna joining the team alongside two-time World Champion Alain Prost, the duo kickstarted a season of utter dominance from the off. In a 16-race calendar, McLaren astonishingly won all but one Grand Prix, seven of these going to Prost while eight were claimed by Senna.

Amid rising tensions with Prost, it was Senna who clinched a maiden Drivers’ Championship by just three points, while the outfit surged to the Teams’ crown with a total of 199 points, giving them a significant buffer of 134 points over second-placed Ferrari.

Many years on, McLaren’s winning percentage of that season remains the second greatest in the sport’s history – indeed, they continued to hold the record for the highest up until just two years ago, when they were bettered by Red Bull’s 2023 campaign.

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