Formula 1 (F1) is the most expensive and competitive sport in the world. Teams spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year just to stay on the grid. Most of them never win a single race in their entire existence.
So when a team shows up out of nowhere, wins big, and then disappears, it becomes something no one ever forgets.
These teams are called ‘one-hit wonders.’ In this article, we will look at the top 5 one-hit wonder teams in F1 history. They are ranked by how big their achievement was and how unexpected it felt at the time, like a team that won both World Championships in its only season sits at the top.
Top 5 One-Hit Wonder Teams In F1 History
| Team Name | Year |
|---|---|
| Brawn GP | 2009 |
| Walter Wolf Racing | 1977 |
| BMW Sauber | 2008 |
| Hesketh Racing | 1975 |
| Racing Point | 2020 |
1. Brawn GP
Honda quit F1 in December 2008 due to the financial crisis. Team boss Ross Brawn bought the entire operation for $1, fitted a Mercedes engine, and arrived at the 2009 Australian Grand Prix with a secret weapon. Jenson Button won 6 of the first 7 races. The team won 8 of 17. Both titles were theirs.
By the end of the year, Mercedes bought the team for $110 million, and it became the dominant Mercedes dynasty of the 2010s. Brawn GP is the only team in F1 history with a 100% championship success rate. Jenson Button retired from professional racing in late 2025 and now serves as Aston Martin‘s team ambassador, while Ross Brawn went on to shape F1’s future as its Managing Director of Motorsport.
2. Walter Wolf Racing
Oil millionaire Walter Wolf built a team from scratch and arrived at the 1977 Argentine Grand Prix as a total unknown. Driver Jody Scheckter started tenth, watched six cars ahead of him retire, and won the race on debut, with no sponsors on the car.
Jody Scheckter won two more times that year, at Monaco and Canada, and finished second in the championship. Then rivals mastered ground-effect aerodynamics, the team fell behind, and Wolf sold up at the end of 1979. Scheckter himself had already left for Ferrari a year earlier, where he won the 1979 World Championship and today runs one of the UK’s most acclaimed organic farms in Hampshire.
3. BMW Sauber
Robert Kubica won the 2008 Canadian Grand Prix with BMW Sauber, becoming the first Polish driver to win an F1 race and briefly leading the Drivers’ Championship. BMW’s management then made a baffling call, as they stopped developing the 2008 car to focus on 2009.
The title challenge was abandoned from within. The 2009 car was poor, and BMW quit F1 at the end of that season, with the team being sold back to Peter Sauber.
Robert Kubica’s own life took an unexpected turn when a brutal rally accident in 2011 nearly ended his career, but he fought back to return to F1 and eventually won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2025.
4. Hesketh Racing
Lord Hesketh was a young British aristocrat who went racing because he could. The team then arrived at circuits in Rolls-Royces, stayed in five-star hotels, and carried no corporate backing whatsoever.
The F1 establishment laughed at them. Then Hesketh’s brilliant driver, James Hunt, beat Niki Lauda’s dominant Ferrari at the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort, holding off the world’s best car for over 30 laps in one of the greatest underdog drives in F1 history.
James Hunt later said the win ‘cured him overnight’ of cracking under pressure, and that without it he probably wouldn’t have become World Champion with McLaren in 1976. Lord Hesketh ran out of money by the end of 1975, Hunt left for bigger things, and the team faded away by 1978.
James Hunt went on to become a beloved BBC commentator before passing away in June 1993, aged 45.
5. Racing Point
Sergio Perez was hit and spun on the very first lap of the 2020 Sakhir Grand Prix, dropping to last place. Over the next 80 laps, he drove through the entire field, and when race leader George Russell had his win destroyed by a Mercedes pit stop blunder, Sergio Perez inherited the lead and won his first-ever F1 victory in his 190th career start.
The Racing Point team then rebranded as Aston Martin the following season, and Perez went on to join Red Bull, finish runner-up in the 2023 championship, and is back on the 2026 grid with the new Cadillac F1 team.
Also Read: Top 10 Best F1 Drivers Who Never Won A World Championship
