1999 Formula 1 Season
16 races · Champion: Mika Häkkinen
Driver Standings
| Pos | Driver | Team | Pts | Wins |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mika Häkkinen | McLaren | 76 | 5 |
| 2 | Eddie Irvine | Ferrari | 74 | 4 |
| 3 | Heinz-Harald Frentzen | Jordan | 54 | 2 |
| 4 | David Coulthard | McLaren | 48 | 2 |
| 5 | Michael Schumacher | Ferrari | 44 | 2 |
| 6 | Ralf Schumacher | Williams | 35 | 0 |
| 7 | Rubens Barrichello | Stewart | 21 | 0 |
| 8 | Johnny Herbert | Stewart | 15 | 1 |
| 9 | Giancarlo Fisichella | Benetton | 13 | 0 |
| 10 | Mika Salo | BAR | 10 | 0 |
| 11 | Jarno Trulli | Prost | 7 | 0 |
| 12 | Damon Hill | Jordan | 7 | 0 |
| 13 | Alexander Wurz | Benetton | 3 | 0 |
| 14 | Pedro Diniz | Sauber | 3 | 0 |
| 15 | Jean Alesi | Sauber | 2 | 0 |
| 16 | Olivier Panis | Prost | 2 | 0 |
| 17 | Marc Gené | Minardi | 1 | 0 |
| 18 | Pedro de la Rosa | Arrows | 1 | 0 |
| Alessandro Zanardi | Williams | 0 | 0 | |
| Toranosuke Takagi | Arrows | 0 | 0 | |
| Jacques Villeneuve | BAR | 0 | 0 | |
| Ricardo Zonta | BAR | 0 | 0 | |
| Luca Badoer | Minardi | 0 | 0 | |
| Stéphane Sarrazin | Minardi | 0 | 0 |
Races
The 1999 Season
The 1999 season saw Mika Hakkinen successfully defend his World Championship for McLaren-Mercedes, but only after one of the most unpredictable and dramatic campaigns of the era, shaped decisively by a single accident. Hakkinen and Michael Schumacher resumed their rivalry as the clear favourites, but the championship was thrown wide open at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, where Schumacher crashed heavily at Stowe corner after a brake failure, breaking his leg and ruling himself out for much of the season.
Schumacher's injury removed the championship's strongest contender from contention and elevated his Ferrari teammate Eddie Irvine into an unlikely title challenger. Irvine, never previously regarded as a championship-calibre driver, seized his opportunity and racked up four victories, leading the standings at various points and pushing the title fight to the very last race. Ferrari, sensing its best chance at a drivers' crown in two decades, threw its full weight behind Irvine, even recalling Schumacher late in the year to support his teammate's bid.
Hakkinen, meanwhile, endured a season of mistakes and misfortune that nearly cost him the title, including a notorious spin while leading at Monza that reduced him to tears in the trackside bushes, and a wheel failure while leading in Britain. But the Finn rallied when it mattered most, winning the final two races of the season in Malaysia and Japan to clinch the championship. He took the title at Suzuka, beating Irvine by two points in a tense finale that came down to the wire.
The season was significant for showing how vulnerable even the strongest teams were to the fortunes of a single driver, and how close Ferrari came to ending its long drivers' title drought through Irvine before Schumacher's absence ultimately denied them. Ferrari did, however, win the constructors' championship, its first since 1983, a crucial milestone in the team's rebuilding project and a sign that the full Schumacher-led conquest was imminent. McLaren had to settle for the drivers' crown alone, and the stage was set for Ferrari's coming era of total dominance.