With Jenson Button joining Lewis Hamilton this year we look at some British pairings of the past.
A look at some famous British F1 driver pairings of the past
British Formula One fans can look forward to real treat in 2010 as, for the first time in the sport's history, successive World Champions, Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button, are teamed together. Here, we look at the highest-profile driver line-ups these shores have produced to date.
1950s
Mike Hawthorn and Peter Collins
This larger-than-life pair - Hawthorn the first Briton to win a grand prix during the World Championship era and Collins a title contender in 1956 before selflessly handing his car over to team leader Juan Manuel Fangio in the Italian Grand Prix - drove for Ferrari in 1957 and '58. Their first season together saw a boisterous friendship flourish but results were poor on the track. With the introduction of the Dino 246 car the following year, however, results improved considerably but tragedy struck when Collins, who had won the British Grand Prix at Silverstone just two weeks earlier, was killed aged 26 in the German Grand Prix. Hawthorn went on to take the title but was himself killed not long afterwards in a road accident.
Stirling Moss and Tony Brooks
Moss is widely considered the best driver never to have won the World Championship but the underrated Brooks - who won the first Formula One race he contested - also had a talent that came from the very top drawer. Paired together - in direct competition to Ferrari's Hawthorn and Collins - at the Vanwall team, they shared victory in the 1957 British Grand Prix. The following season proved even more successful as Vanwall became the first Constructors' Champions with six wins in all, three for each driver as Moss and Brooks respectively finished second and third in the drivers' standings. However, despite claiming only one win, it was Hawthorn who took the title. Moss was already a household name by this stage but his career ended after an accident at Goodwood on Easter Monday 1962. Brooks, who went on to drive for Ferrari and BRM, retired at the end of the 1961 season.
1960s
Graham Hill and Jackie Stewart
Hill won the 1962 World Championship for the BRM team, the raffish Londoner in the process establishing himself as one of Britain's leading sporting personalities. However, his dominance was threatened the moment a young Scot joined him three years later. Clearly destined for big things from the word go, Stewart won the Italian Grand Prix in his first season and also won in Monaco the following year. Hill soon departed for Lotus but only after helping save his team-mate from serious injury or worse in the 1966 Belgian Grand Prix when, having crashed on lap one of the race at Spa, Stewart was trapped in a car laden with leaking fuel. The incident inspired Stewart's crusade for improved safety standards in F1 and he eventually retired at the end of the 1973 season having claimed the last of his three world titles.
Jim Clark and Graham Hill
Hill rejoined Lotus (who had given him his F1 break) ahead of the 1967 season and also swapped one Scottish master for another: Stewart's promise giving way to the here-and-now genius of Jim Clark. Already a two-time World Champion, the latter enjoyed a close relationship with team boss Colin Chapman, although both drivers were hampered that year by the fragility of Chapman's latest design, the Lotus 49. Its speed was still such that Clark won three times in it (including on its debut at Zandvoort) and he also won the first race of 1968 in South Africa. Alas, Clark was killed in April of that year with Hill then picking up the baton (Lotus having also to come to terms with the death of another British driver, Mike Spence, in qualifying for the Indianapolis 500) and proceeding to win his second world title. He remained in F1 until 1975, establishing his own team in the process, before being killed in a plane crash.
1990s
Damon Hill, David Coulthard and Nigel Mansell
The 1994 season proved a tumultuous one for the Williams team, with Ayrton Senna killed at the San Marino Grand Prix just three races after joining them from McLaren. Much as his father did at Lotus following Jim Clark's death, Hill subsequently led the team and challenged for the title, albeit losing out to Michael Schumacher in controversial circumstances in Adelaide. The team offered something of a piecemeal solution to filling Senna's seat, with young test driver David Coulthard handed his F1 break and Nigel Mansell - who had quit Williams for IndyCars after winning the 1992 title - back in the cockpit whenever his commitments Stateside allowed. The moustachioed Midlander inherited victory in the Australian Grand Prix after Schumacher and Hill collided, however that proved his last race for the team. Hill and Coulthard led Williams' title assault the following season but it was Schumacher and Benetton who triumphed once more.
