13 F1 Cars Of The 1990s We All Love

The 1990s were an incredible time for Formula 1, with the rivalry between Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna dominating early in the decade. Latterly, the iconic fight between Michael Schumacher at Ferrari and Mika Hakkinen at McLaren would captivate the fans.

Throughout the decade, there were some fantastic cars, and our list will include 13 of the most iconic. These are not necessarily the best or most successful, but the ones we remember the most for either their looks or underdog performances. Naturally, however, that will include some race and title-winning machines.

1991 Jordan 191

Eddie Jordan’s plucky little outfit entered Formula 1 in 1991, and that year, they raced the gorgeous Jordan 191. It’s a car regularly viewed as the best-looking in the history of F1, thanks to its sleek design and the eye-catching livery of title sponsor 7Up. The 191 was also a speedy car, and the team was unlucky not to be on the podium due to its unreliability.

The best finish for the 191 was fourth place in Montreal, thanks to Andrea de Cesaris. Arguably, its most famous moment came at the Belgium Grand Prix, when the car gave a young Michael Schumacher his F1 debut and qualified in seventh place. The race only lasted a few corners for Schumacher, but he had already shown how good he could be.

Ligier JS43

Ligier was a French team that competed with some success in the sport, and across its 20-year history, Ligier won nine races. The most dramatic was arguably the 1996 Monaco Grand Prix, won by Olivier Panis in the JS43 with Mugen Honda power in the back. That race in Monaco was a chaotic affair, with only three cars finishing as Panis took a famous and emotional win.

Thanks to Panis, Ligier scored 15 points across the year 13, and the team placed sixth in the constructors championship. It is worth noting that back then, only the top six cars scored points in a race, hence the lower points number than we would see with the current top-ten scoring system.

McLaren MP4/6

McLaren was the dominant force at the start of the 1990s, and one of its best creations was the McLaren MP4/6 with Honda V12 power under the hood. Honda worked hard to extract 780 hp from the engine late in the season, and over the year, McLaren won eight races with the car, seven of those coming thanks to Ayrton Senna, the final one by Gerhard Berger.

McLaren won both championships that year, and the driver’s title for Senna would be his last in the sport due to his tragic death at Imola in 1994. It was also the previous title McLaren won with Honda as engine supplier, as the all-conquering Williams-Renault FW1B at the hands of Nigel Mansell and Riccardo Patrese dominated the 1992 season.

Williams FW14B

The Williams FW14B evolved from the FW14 from the 1991 F1 season. After a slow start to the year, the team narrowly missed out on the titles that season. Nigel Mansell dominated the 1992 season, taking nine wins, a record, while teammate Riccardo Patrese won once that year. Mansell had taken five wins in 1991, and Patrese two.

The key to the FW14 B’s success was its active suspension, which increased the car’s downforce and allowed it to go through the corners quickly. McLaren couldn’t live with the Williams system, and the car evolved into the FW5C of 1993, in which Alain Prost would dominate.

1999 Stewart SF3

Jackie Stewart’s team exploded onto the scene in 1997 and was almost immediately competitive, thanks to cars designed by Gary Anderson and a powerful Forc Cosworth engine in the back. The 1999 season was the final one for the team under this name before they became Jaguar, and they went out with a bang.

The SF3 was very competitive, taking four podiums and one pole position throughout the season. Rubens Barichello took pole in France before finishing that race in third place, and then teammate Johnny Herbert won the European Grand Prix with his teammate in third place that day. Stewart finished third in the standings at the end of the year.

1999 Jordan 199

Jordan gets another entry on this list thanks to their bright and colorful 1999 199. However, the 199 wasn’t just pretty. The Benson & Hedges sponsored car had Mugen-Honda power in the back and a chassis designed by Mike Gascoyne. This, plus the combination of Heinz-Harald Frentzen, enabled the team to take six podiums, two wins, and a pole position across the season, with Frentzen challenging for the world title that year.

Teammate Damon Hill didn’t fare well, and the 1996 world champion retired at the end of the year. But he and Frentzen helped the team to a third-place finish in the championship with 61 points, the best finish for the Jordan team in its F1 history.

1997 McLaren MP4/12

After Senna left McLaren in 1994, the British team would only win a single race after the 1997 F1 season. But this season marked a massive turnaround for the squad, with David Coulthard winning the first race of the season as well as the Italian Grand Prix. Teammate Mika Hakkinen took his first win of the year at the season finale in Jerez, which was a McLaren 1-2.

The MP4/12 was very competitive throughout the season, although unreliability cost the team more points, finishes, and even a few victories. Ultimately, the MP4/12 set McLaren on the path to success over the next few years, which included two world drivers’ titles for Hakkinen and a constructors’ crown in 1998.

Williams FW18

The 1996 season saw Williams once again be the class of the field, with Damon Hill locked into an exclusive title battle with rookie teammate, Indy 500 winner, and IndyCar champion Jaques Villeneuve. Out of the 16 races that season, the FW18 would win 12 with 21 podiums and 12 pole positions.

Hill won eight of the year’s races, with Villeneuve winning the other four. Only a handful of victories went to other teams, with Michael Schumacher winning three races for Ferrari and Olivier Panis taking that remarkable win at Monaco in the Ligier. Hill would become world champion after winning the season finale in Japan. The FW18 led to the FW19, which would also become a championship winner 1997.

McLaren MP4/8

While it didn’t win the world title, the McLaren MP4/8 was the final car Ayrton Senna won in before his death at Imola in 1994. The MP4/8 was sadly underpowered thanks to its Ford engine, but it was light and nimble and had a simple but neat active suspension system. This meant that Senna could fight Alain Prost in the FW15C for the title and, at one point, led the championship.

Senna only took one pole position all year but would win five races. Yet it could have been even better after McLaren tested the MP4/8 with a Lamborghini V12 engine that Senna was very praiseworthy about. Former McLaren and now Pratt & Miller engineer Ian Wright in 2015 said, “When the Lamborghini engine was bolted into the MP4/8, it did not go any quicker, so some downforce was added to enable the extra power to be used. Had the MP4/8 had the Lamborghini engine on the back instead of the Ford, it would have had the pace to win the ’93 championship comfortably.”

1999 Honda RA099

While this is stretching things a bit, the 1999 Honda RA099 could have been one of the most exciting cars of the decade. Honda was contemplating returning to F1 with its team after it left McLaren as an engine supplier in 1992. In 1999, the evaluation stepped up a gear, with legendary designer Harvey Postlethwaite developing the RA099 and Jos Verstappen, father of current F1 champion Max, test-driving the car.

During testing, Verstappen put in some impressive lap times in the RA099. It is so impressive that it would have put the RA099 firmly in the midfield on the F1 grid in qualifying. Tragically, Postelthwaite had a heart attack during the testing program and died. Honda then pulled out of the program, and when they returned in 2000, it was as an engine supplier to BAR.

McLaren MP4/13

McLaren’s first F1 title since the early 1990s came thanks to Mika Hakkinen in the MP4/13, with teammate David Coulthard contributing to the team’s constructors’ championship. Hakkinen fought the Ferrari of Michael Schumacher throughout the year, and he took eight victories that year, with Coulthard winning once at Imola.

It was McLaren’s first title since 1991, when they and Senna won both championships, and it was Hakkinen’s first of two driver’s titles. Remarkably, McLaren has not won a constructors’ title since 1998, as while Hakkinen was champion again, the team beaten to the title by Ferrari.

Ferrari 641

The Ferrari 641, driven by Alain Prost and Nigel Mansell, is arguably one of the prettiest cars to ever race in Formula 1. The Ferrari 641 had a development of the semi-automatic transmission used in its predecessor, the 640. It was just as quick as the McLaren MP4/5B, with Prost winning five races that season while Mansell took one victory in Portugal.

The season ended controversially after Senna and Prost collided at the start of the Japanese Grand Prix. Incredibly, the successor, the 642/643, was a dog’s dinner of a car, failing to win a single race. Ferrari sacked Prost before the end of that season after criticism of the team and the car.

1992 Lotus 107/109

The 1992 Lotus 107 was one of Colin Chapman’s team’s last Formula 1 cars. Although the car had mixed results, the 109 had a lot of potential. Johnny Herbert dragged the car to places it shouldn’t have been at times, with some fourth-place finishes, and in the 1992 season, Mika Hakkinen came close to taking podiums in the car.

In 1994, the 107 became the 109, and this was the last Lotus car, which was struggling financially at the time. At that year’s Italian Grand Prix, a new Mugen-Honda engine transformed the 109, and Johnny Herbert had hoped to fight for a podium after qualifying fourth. Sadly, he was taken out at the first corner, and after a red-flag restarted race, Herbert raced in the older-spec car without the upgraded engine.