McLaren's champions... by their team-mates

EMERSON FITTIPALDI
World champion with McLaren in 1974

David Hobbs on Emerson Fittipaldi
Fittipaldi won the world title driving a Marlboro Texaco McLaren in 1974. Team-mate Hobbs drove a couple of races that season in a Yardley McLaren M23

The difference between Emerson and your average driver was that like all the really top guys, he was super-dedicated and super-fast.

There's just something about those top drivers that's hard to put your finger on. A lot of it is in the head: they are more focused, more dedicated and more ruthless. For example, I would suggest something to my engineer who would reply: "I'm not really sure that's a very good idea," and I would say: "OK then."

Someone like Emerson would say: "I want you to do this, this and this," and then add: "I want you to do it now, before I go out again." If they're getting what they want and they're successful, then it suddenly becomes harder to say no to them. I only drove for McLaren a couple of times in 1974 and I remember letting myself be talked out of doing some things I really wanted to do with the car that I'm sure would have enabled me to do a lot better.

But someone like Emerson would never let that happen to him. He was already a champion when he came to McLaren and that made a hell of a difference to the way the team responded to him. At that time, just after Jackie Stewart had retired and with [Niki] Lauda coming through, Emerson was top dog in the paddock, driver-wise.

He'd won the title in 1972 with Lotus and become the youngest ever champion; he missed out narrowly in '73 and then in '74 he won it again. Obviously he was very, very good and McLaren were top of the tree so the combination of the two was seen as absolutely the creme de la creme.

There were a lot of good drivers around at the time, but being like Emerson was everyone's goal.

JAMES HUNT
World champion in 1976

Jochen Mass on James Hunt
Mass was team-mate to Hunt during Hunt's world championship-winning season in 1976, and then again the following year

There was always quite a playboy image surrounding James, and why not? He was good-looking, like a British goldilocks, very charming, and fast as well. When he came into the team we knew each other already from Formula 3: we had always got on and enjoyed a good party together, although I was a bit older than James.

At McLaren the dynamic was different. James was the number one and of course he was British, so he got the best equipment. As a team, McLaren were pretty fair, so I'm not complaining. It wasn't always a one-way street though, as there were some circuits where I was quicker than James: Jarama, Paul Ricard, even Monaco - I think that annoyed him.

The one that got away from me that year was the title-decider in Fuji. James needed to finish fifth or higher to take the title, but early on in that mad race I was just following him round dutifully - even though I was comfortably quicker. And it was probably because I was having to follow that I simply lost concentration for a second and aquaplaned, hitting the barrier.

I got back to the pits but my car was too badly damaged to continue. Looking back on it, I should just have passed James and seen what happened: I had a really good feeling that day.

And then of course I would have stopped or dropped back later, if James needed me to in order to take the title. No question. But at least I would have proved a point. James was one of the good guys. He lived a crazy life, and I guess that's what caught up with him in the end. He was way too young to go, and we all lost a very special character.

NIKI LAUDA
World champion with McLaren in 1984

John Watson on Niki Lauda
Initially team-mates together at Brabham in 1978, they were reunited at McLaren in 1982 and '83. Lauda took his third and final world title in 1984

Following on from being Niki's team-mate at Brabham, the second time around I saw the skill of the man wasn't just in the cockpit but out of it, too. As well as being a double world champion, what he really wanted to do was to assert himself as the number-one guy in the team.

He tried to convince Ron Dennis and John Barnard that he was the man who was going to get the job done. One of the things about Niki is that he's very straight and it's always his way or the highway. One Sunday morning at Zolder, I did a tyre run and chose a particular set of tyres for the left-hand side of the car. I knew that if it stayed hot I would be in a good position for the race.

Niki came to me and asked what I was doing and I told him I'd pass him in the race because of my choice of tyres. I suggested that he should also use them, but he stood there and thought about it and said: "No, no. I'm going to stick with the tyres I've got." I asked him why, because I was a friend as well as a team-mate. "Why not?"

With great reluctance he gave me an insight that I was able to benefit from. It simply went against his instinct to try that tyre. He wouldn't go outside the narrow framework that he already understood.

I've flown with him before and he's a very good pilot, but he does it strictly by the book; that is his basic personality and character. That was the same on this occasion. And guess what? I passed him, like I said I would, and went on and won the race.

ALAIN PROST
World champion with McLaren in 1985, '86 and '89

Stefan Johansson on Alain Prost
Prost won three of his four titles with McLaren, but it was during its lean year in 1987 that he was partnered by Johansson

When I joined Alain Prost at McLaren it was a revelation and a shock. I expected him to be good, obviously, but not that good. It soon became very clear to me that he was the most complete driver of all: maybe the best driver in Formula 1 history.

Not necessarily the fastest - there were people like Ayrton Senna, who was my team-mate at Toleman, who were sometimes quicker - but certainly the most complete I have ever raced against. Throughout my F1 career I generally managed to get the better of all my team-mates, but the two that I couldn't quite crack were Alain and Ayrton.

If I had to choose only one defining characteristic of Alain's, it would be his work ethic. He'd work incredibly hard, day and night, giving the best possible feedback to the engineers. That was way more important back then than it is now, because the level of telemetry was nothing like it is today.

The most important sensor was the driver himself and Alain was always very skilful at communicating what needed to be done and getting the car exactly the way he wanted it. I think that's something all the truly great drivers have in common.

I enjoyed a very good relationship with Alain with no problems at all, political or otherwise. If you're straight with people, they tend to be straight with you. Alain was always pretty open and honest and that actually reflected the culture of McLaren, which I found to be quite an easy environment to work in.

All the information was shared and nothing was held back. Of course Alain was a big threat from a sporting point of view because he was my team-mate and I wanted to beat him, which was easier said than done.

But I also used my time with him as a great opportunity to learn, and I did pick up a lot, while trying my best. That is all you can do. So I look back on that time now as an important chapter of my career.

AYRTON SENNA
World champion in 1988, 1990 and '91

Gerhard Berger on Ayrton Senna
Senna took his second and third titles at McLaren with Gerhard Berger as his team-mate. The pair remained at the team in 1992

Ayrton was the fastest driver that I ever raced against. He was focused, he was disciplined and he was extremely strong both mentally and physically. I would love to have beaten him... but I couldn't. I got his attention because in my very first grand prix as his team-mate, I put my car on pole position at Phoenix in 1990 in the wet. That certainly woke him up.

But I would say I had his attention the whole time because we had a lot of fights and I was pushing him to the limits in certain ways. He had so much more experience than me, starting out in karts at four years old. And he was probably the best driver of his era. To this day, I would have to say that I hadn't seen anyone that's above him.

Until Ayrton, I could have beaten my team-mates just with my natural talent alone. I didn't have to work extremely hard for it, but when I met Senna it was too late to catch up on all the work he had been doing all of his career - starting so young in karts, for example - and you couldn't beat him just with talent, because he had too much of that. It was always hard for me at McLaren as Ayrton was world champion with them. Clearly I had less weight within the team, but they were never unfair to me.

If he had survived, do I think he would be president of the sport, the FIA? No, I think he set his sights higher than that. I saw him as a leader in support of poor people, people with problems. He realised more and more what a privileged situation we all are in, and I think his final goal was to use this leverage for people with difficulties. That's what he would have put his efforts into.

MIKA HAKKINEN
World champion in 1998 and '99

David Coulthard on Mika Hakkinen
The two were team-mates in 1996-2001, during which time Hakkinen took his two drivers' titles

Mika was very good at delivering a time over a single lap and then the advantage of that track position made him a very difficult man to beat. We often reflect on our time together - I see Mika quite a lot in Monaco. I always had great respect for him, but I never realised he had quite so much respect for me. So we have a great time reminiscing.

For me, he had that quality that all great drivers have, which is inherent raw speed. Possibly he didn't have the work ethic of a Michael Schumacher, just looking at his physique and all that sort of thing, but then maybe he didn't need to. I don't know because I was never team-mates with Michael, but I had in my mind that maybe Mika was quicker over one lap. What Michael was able to do though, he did for lap, after lap, after lap, after lap.

Sometimes I was able to have the advantage over Mika, but I realise on reflection that for a long part of our tenure together I was losing a bit of performance by not left-foot-braking. For the majority of my career I was a right-foot braker and I only swapped to left-foot braking quite late on.

So there were particular circuits, particularly those with medium-speed corners, where it's just very difficult to go throttle-brake-throttle with your right foot. And that's where he would have an advantage until I eventually learned how to do it.

We were a harmonious combination. The only time we ever had difficulty was Spa 1999, where we touched at the first corner and he didn't want to talk to me on the podium. But other than that it was always OK.

Mika is a fundamentally good person and I never heard him say a bad thing about anyone the whole time we were together. That in itself is a special quality.

LEWIS HAMILTON
World champion with McLaren in 2008

Heikki Kovalainen on Lewis Hamilton
The two were team-mates at McLaren for two years, during the first of which, 2008, Hamilton won his first world championship

I got on really well with Lewis and I think I pushed him, especially in qualifying. I'm sure he had to raise his game a few times, and obviously where he was better than me was in the races. He was a tough competitor, he worked with the team very well and he got everything out of them all the time.

When I looked at the telemetry, I never saw anything that I thought I couldn't do. The differences were always quite small, and in our final year together I think the differences were very small. But in the races, Lewis looked stronger and the gap looked bigger than it actually was.

I learned a lot from him, though. He drives the car aggressively, he is instantly on the pace, he pushes the car to the limit and sometimes he has a few shunts as well. But that is a good thing to have, and something that I thought I could perhaps work at more. I remember at Silverstone in 2008, I was very quick in the practice sessions, but McLaren had a policy that the guy who has been most successful leading up to an event gets the advantage when it comes to refuelling in the last part of qualifying.

The team don't want both drivers to do a pitstop on the same lap, so we always had two laps' difference in fuel, which could be around 0.2s-0.3s difference per lap. Lewis was ahead of me in the championship and he was getting preferred treatment in qualifying, even when I had been quicker in practice.

There was actually a bit of a fight on the Friday evening after the sessions at the British GP. Flavio Briatore [Kovalainen's manager] went nuts at McLaren and said I should get the preferred treatment. Eventually we agreed to make an exception on this occasion and I started from pole.

It was the only time I got that treatment that year. But I got on very well with Lewis. I think it worked out reasonably well for the team, although it didn't work out very well for me.

The current issue of F1 Racing, now on sale, celebrates McLaren's 50 years in F1 since the team's debut in the 1966 Monaco Grand Prix.

It features this exclusive interview with CEO Ron Dennis, a rundown of 50 mega McLaren moments, an analysis of Fernando Alonso's second spell with the team and what makes the rivalry between McLaren and Ferrari so special...