3 F1 Drivers that went winless in their title defense

The road to an F1 World Championship is a hard one. However, the journey to do it all over again is much harder. Not only do you need a car capable of doing the job, you also need the mental fortitude of climbing that mountain yet again.

This is one of the reasons why there are so many drivers (17 to be exact) failed at defending their F1 title.

However, there are some who faced the ignonimity of not even winning a single race in their first title defense. In this piece, we'll take a look at three of these drivers that went winless after winning their first title.

#3 Jacques Villeneuve(1997 F1 World Champion)

Villeneuve won his first F1 title in 1997 with Williams. This was Williams' fourth title in 1990s and no one could have predicted that a team that was so successful at the time would be unable to win another title in more than 25 years.

However, what was a bigger shock at the time was what happened the very next season as Williams, a team that had dominated F1 in that decade, could not win a single race. The team was on the backfoot with their engine partner Renault pulling out of the sport and as a result, left Williams at a distant third that season.

Villeneuve, on his part, was fighting a lost battle when it came to the title but as it turned out, the car was not capable enough to land him even a single win that season. The season marked the downfall of both Jacques Villeneuve and Williams in F1 as the driver was unable to win even a single race for the rest of his career, while Williams has not been able to mount a successful title challenge since.

#2 Damon Hill(1996 F1 World Champion)

Damon Hill is one of the more peculiar cases of a driver that was released from the team despite winning the title for them. Williams during the 1990s was famous for developing dominant machinery that won championships. However, in the 90s it also became a revolving door for the reigning world champions. Nigel Mansell won the title in 1992 and left. Alain Prost won the title in 1993 and retired.

While Hill won the title in 1996 and faced an unceremonial exit. Williams had their eyes on a combination of Jacques Villeneuve and Heinz Herald Frentzen and for that to happen, Hill had to go.

Despite being the World Champion, Hill saw himself moving out of the frontrunning Williams to an ambitious project at Arrows to defend his title in 1997.

However, from the first test onwards, the writing was on the wall as the Arrows was at best a midfield car. Hill was out of contention for the title from the very first race and would be unable to win even a single race throughout the season.

#1 Jody Scheckter(1979 F1 World Champion)

Jody Scheckter enjoyed the same notoriety in the 90s that falls upon Kimi Raikkonen these days. He was the last Ferrari World Champion for more than a decade and it would take 21 years until Michael Schumacher won the title in 2000. Just like Raikkonen has been the last Ferrari World Champion since 2007.

Jody Scheckter had won the title in 1979 with Ferrari. This had come to fruition after a steady improvement throughout the years where the driver had one runner-up and two second runner-up finishes in his F1 career.

After winning the title in 1979, it did appear that Jody lost that motivation to go for the big prize. As a result, in 1980, although he didn't have a capable car at his disposal to fight for the title, Jody finished the season with a mediocre 19th in the championship.

He had just two points to his name (he had three wins in 1979). The writing was on the wall for the Ferrari driver, who subsequently called it quits in F1.