Britain has the most number of World Champions but

MCLS

Anti F1 fan
Valued Member
as far as I'm aware there hasn't been a British driver who has defended his championship. Feel free to correct me but it's actually surprising given the amount of drivers who have won the title, or even won multiple ones like Stewart and maybe Hamilton and Button in the immediate years to come. Any ideas why this is?
 
Galahad posted a comment once that English drivers win in even years and Scottish drivers in odd years, although JB bucked that trend. If you look at recent British WDC's the reasons are fairly obvious:

Mansell 92 - sacked by Williams 93
Hill 96 - sacked by Williams for 97
Hamilton 08 - Mclaren built a pup 09
Button 09 - Mclaren not fast enough 10 (or Red Bull built a better car - glass half full or glass half empty)

Going back a bit further Hunt was a very lucky boy to win the championship in 76 and Jackie Stewart retired after his title in 1971. I'm afraid you'll have to ask someone older than me to go further back in time from there (I was only 5 in 1971).
 
Between 1961 and 1990 there were no double champions. This is because Teams either focused on this year or the next. Look at Stewart's titles (all with Matra/Tyrell) '69, '71, '73. We had 5 of our champions between '63 and '76. Clark/ Hill twice, Stewart three times, and Surtees and Hunt once. (1958 champion Hawthorn was killed in road accident in January 1959.
 
Back in the 50s, 60s and 70s, it was much harder to score back-to-back championships because the cars lacked any semblance of reliability. If the Lotus of the day had had anything like the reliability that prevails today, Clark would have been WDC in 63, 64, 65 and 67. In 1966, he had no chance because of the BRM H-16 slug that powered the Lotus 43.
 
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