Inside F1 teammate rivalries: Why Oscar Piastri is Lando Norris greatest threat

It has become something of a cliché in motorsport that a driver’s biggest rival is their teammate, but why?

Motorsport is somewhat unique in that a team of hundreds of people all channel their efforts into the support of just two drivers who are, if we’re brutally honest about it, driven by self-interest and ego.

Racing your teammate wasn’t always a given

Motor racing is a team sport. That is highlighted in Formula 1 by the very existence of the Constructors’ Championship. It is that competition against which all its riches are paid out, which in current terms can be worth well over $100 million for the winner.

A competition for the teams only came about in 1958, then dubbed the ‘International Cup for F1 Manufacturers’, more than a decade after the first F1 race and eight years after the world championship was first run. But that competition is one built on the results of each race, of which there can only be an individual winner (at least, since 1957).

For all the effort and support afforded by the team, once in the car, motorsport is a solo endeavour. It is Max Verstappen, or Lando Norris, or Charles Leclerc who are heralded victors more so than Red Bull or McLaren or Ferrari.

Exactly why is likely a combination of factors: a degree of psychology, marketing, and commercialisation. It’s easier to relate to an individual driver than it is to a team (though not impossible). It is the heroics of the swashbuckling drivers’ championship that garners the headlines, not the teams beavering away into the wee hours, away from the public eye. Few remember which team was second best in 2022, let alone 2002 or 1972.

For much of the early years of Formula 1, while teams would field multiple cars, there was usually a clear lead driver. Jackie Stewart was the clear leader over Francois Cevert, Mario Andretti over Ronnie Petersen, and so on.

While an element of that hierarchy was to attract top-line drivers, it was also a pragmatic approach to the fact that, for the most part, teams couldn’t produce two equally competitive cars. Lead drivers wanted that protection so they had the best machinery.

That is no slight on F1 through that era, but prior to the early 1980s and the introduction of computerised and automated production, the natural variation in components resulted in a more significant performance difference in the underlying machinery; one gearbox would feel better than another, an engine would produce more power than another, and so on.

It was only the introduction of computer aided manufacturing, when the potential for human error was all but eliminated, that it became possible for teams to produce cars that were more equitable.

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Even then, a team must have the resources at its disposal to build two equal machines. While Ayrton Senna drove for Lotus in the mid-1980s he blocked the signing of Derek Warwick, reasoning the team didn’t have the capacity to produce two cars to a race-winning level.

It explains why, prior to the advent of CAD/CAM systems, that there were few instances of teammates ever competing against one another for a world title. It wasn’t necessarily because a team only had one capable driver, or that contractually it was not permitted (though often it was); for the most part, mechanically, it simply wasn’t feasible.

There have been exceptions. Juan Manuel Fangio and Stirling Moss commanded the 1955 world championship, though even then Fangio ended the year comfortably clear in the standings. In 1967, Denny Hulme won the world title, beating his teammate (and boss) Jack Brabham as the Brabham team enjoyed a purple patch courtesy of its Repco-badged engine in the early stages of F1’s return to 3-litre engines.

Modern Formula 1 is far removed from the skilled artisans that once prepared the cars, with much of the manufacturing performed by machinery with tolerances beyond anything a human is capable of. Car preparation is also vastly improved; cars can be set-up with far greater precision while data allows the more straightforward comparison.

Differences remain. Formula 1 has become about rapid-prototyping and often that means insufficient parts are available to ensure both drivers have identical spec equipment, but for the most part these are no longer fundamental. Once, it was not unusual for teams to enter two completely different models of car for its drivers.

Computers have brought with them increased competition and created an environment where teammates can now compete in a way that, 40 years ago, was only beginning to be considered. It was a transition that began in the late 1970s and has led directly to the scenario seen in Monza last weekend where, with two equally matched drivers in two equally good cars, it was the team itself which stole the headlines.

Its management of the situation is a matter of opinion. McLaren felt it was doing the right thing for the integrity of the competition between its two drivers, many outside it felt otherwise.

But the simple fact they are competing at all is a result of a team being able to not just produce a car capable of winning races and world championships, but that it can produce two of them. As trivial as it may now seem, for much of motorsport’s history, the concept was little more than a pipedream.

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