The 2014 Formula 1 Season might have been dominated by Mercedes over the opening seven rounds, but at least the battle between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg has added to the intrigue. F1 has a proud history of teammates disliking one another and despite some fairly transparent efforts from the pair to pretend they’re not such bad mates after all over the past week, they’re not fooling anyone.
Their feud came to a head a fortnight ago when Rosberg spun in the final minute of qualifying in Monaco. Boasting the best lap at the time, his “accident” brought out the yellow flags and prevented Hamilton having one final crack at pole – a fact that didn’t escape the Briton when he referenced the famous feud between Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost in the 1980s and 90s.
So we get it – Rosberg and Hamilton aren’t mates – which got us thinking about some of the great Formula 1 feuds of the past between teammates who should have been working together but instead preferred to share death stares at 10 paces.
1) Ayrton Senna v Alain Prost – We mentioned it above and to this day it remains the most memorable feud of all time. What seemed like a match made in heaven for McLaren’s bosses instead became the most bitter of rivalries. After Senna won the 1988 title, Prost prevailed in 1989 thanks largely to the infamous Japanese GP when the two ran each other off the track. Prost, who led the Championship at the time, was accused of instigating the crash which secured him the title. A year later, with Prost now at Ferrari, Senna cynically took Prost out at the first corner in Japan to ensure he took the crown. The word “hatred” springs to mind.
The famous Prost-Senna crash of 1989
2) Sebastian Vettel v Mark Webber – This one was fairly one-sided. In five seasons together, Vettel won four Drivers’ Championships and Webber none with the German generally much faster than his Red Bull teammate. But there were plenty of clashes. They included the team giving the German Webber’s front wing when both men wanted it for qualifying, Webber battling for position when told not to by the team and Vettel passing Webber to win the 2013 Malaysian GP against team orders. Webber always felt he was treated poorly by Red Bull, prompting him to quip over the radio after winning the 2010 British GP, “Not bad for a number two driver.”
3) Nigel Mansell v Nelson Piquet – This was one of the fiercest rivalries of all time even though neither was able to win the Drivers’ Championship while teammates at Williams in their first year together in 1986. Already a two-time world champion in 1981 and 1983, Piquet was incensed that Williams would make the young Mansell their number one driver in ’86 and the two battled fiercely throughout the year … so fiercely that the points they took from one another allowed Alain Prost to steal the title! Piquet won by the narrowest of margins in 1987 before they separated but the rivalry lived on – perhaps because of Piquet’s description of the Briton as an “uneducated blockhead”.
