New rules and ingenious design tricks once put an end to Schumacher and Mercedes’ winning streaks—now the question is, who will dethrone McLaren?
McLaren is on cloud nine: With two consecutive Constructors’ Championships under its belt and Lando Norris as the reigning champion, the Woking-based team kicked off the new 2026 era. A whopping 364-point lead over Mercedes recently underscored the “Papayas’” dominance. But the history of Formula 1 teaches us: Every era comes to an end eventually—usually with a bang.
The competition is already champing at the bit to stop McLaren’s dominance. Anyone who wants to know how an empire is brought down need only look to the history books. These are the most striking cases in which new heroes toppled the old rulers from their thrones.
Ground Effect and Design Geniuses
As early as 1978, Lotus showed how a team can break a dominance. Ferrari had a firm grip on the mid-1970s under Niki Lauda, but Colin Chapman pulled the ground-effect miracle out of his hat with the Lotus 78 and 79. The result: Mario Andretti was crowned champion and ended Ferrari’s winning streak.
Williams pulled off a similar feat in 1992. Between 1984 and 1991, McLaren had won nearly everything there was to win. But then a certain Adrian Newey arrived in Grove. The result was the legendary FW14B—a car from another world, with which Nigel Mansell utterly outclassed the competition.
The End of the Schumacher Era
Between 1993 and 1997, Williams collected four more team titles while McLaren was in the midst of rebuilding. The decisive move: luring Adrian Newey away from their rival. His first real design for Woking, the MP4-13, perfectly met the new regulations for 1998 (narrower track, grooved tires). Mika Häkkinen celebrated his first title, while Williams went winless for the first time in ten years.
The year 2005 also remains unforgettable. After five consecutive world championship titles, Michael Schumacher seemed unbeatable in his Ferrari. But a rule change—the ban on tire changes during the race—played into the hands of Renault and Fernando Alonso. The Spaniard ended the “Schumi run” and became the youngest world champion in history at the time.
From Mercedes to Red Bull—and now McLaren?
In the recent past, it was Mercedes that dominated everything from the start of the hybrid era in 2014 until Max Verstappen turned the tide in a dramatic finale in 2021. And while Verstappen dominated the scene until 2024, it is now McLaren that has stopped the Red Bull Express.
Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri have led McLaren back to the top—a success the team has been waiting for since 1998 (back then with Mika Häkkinen). But with the new 2026 regulations, the cards have been completely reshuffled.
