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F1 is a very competitive sport and the first person that any driver wants to beat is his teammate. Often on the grid, one will find driver pairings where one driver is somewhat better than his teammate. What this does is that it develops a No.1 and No. 2 driver hegemony within a team as well.
There are however certain circumstances where one of the two drivers perform at a very high level. The level at which they perform, their teammates are unable to keep up. This is something that is arguably not a desirable situation because in this case, while one driver dominates his teammate it also puts intense pressure on the second driver, which causes him to underperform significantly or even make mistakes. More often than not this underperformance significantly compromises the career of the second driver.
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This is not a common phenomenon in F1 but there are certain drivers that show the ability to do so. These lead drivers are arguably extremely elite talents that leave their teammates compromised.
Who are these elites that have ended up making their teammate look 'ordinary' because they were driving the same car? Let's take a look.
3 greatest 'teammate-killers' in F1
#1 Fernando Alonso
When we talk about F1 and teammate killers, the first driver that often comes to mind is Fernando Alonso. The Spaniard has made an entire career out of dominating teammates in a manner that was so debilitating. The situation got so bad that many teams were reluctant to put a young fast driver alongside Alonso because of the fear of just ending their career to the one-sided domination.
It's such a long list of distinguished drivers that were made to look like their diminished selves as teammates to Alonso. Proven talents like former F1 race winner Giancarlo Fisichella, former championship runner-up Felipe Massa, and multiple podium finisher Romain Grosjean are just some of the established names that were almost made to look ordinary.
You could add promising talents like Nelson Piquet Jr. or Stoffel Vandoorne whose careers were virtually ended by their partnership with Alonso. In all these years, arguably world champions like Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button and young charger Esteban Ocon have been able to hold their own against the Spaniard but if there is one driver who should be termed a 'teammate killer' then it has to be Fernando Alonso.
#2 Michael Schumacher
One fact about Michael Schumacher is that many contemporary fans might not be aware of is that the German was never outperformed by a teammate throughout his career until his first retirement in 2006. It wasn't until he came from retirement at the age of 40 did he lost to Nico Rosberg.
After Alain Prost's retirement in 1993 and Ayrton Senna's tragic death in 1994, Michael Schumacher was the benchmark in F1 and there was no doubt about it. The German was heads and shoulders above everyone in the field and as a result, the driver dominated his teammates.
Whether it was the Ferrari era where he was given preferential treatment anyway or his time in Bennetton, no teammate came close to the German as he retired from the sport the first time without losing out to any of his teammates.
#3 Max Verstappen
Arguably one of the more prominent teammate killers in F1 right now is Max Verstappen. One easy way to ascertain this is what he has done in the last few years. Since 2019, the Red Bull driver has been teamed up with Pierre Gasly, Alex Albon, and Sergio Perez.
First, it was Gasly who was chucked out of the team mid-season for lack of performance. Then we had the same happen to Alex Albon that had the same thing happen to him after 18 months with the team. The latest victim has been Sergio Perez who might be about to face the same fate within the team.
Sure, there is an element of the car being more to Verstappen's liking because he is the team leader but should the gap be as magnified as it tends to be right now? A chunk of it can be put down to Max Verstappen being a brilliant F1 driver who does not make too many mistakes.
Verstappen is arguably the biggest 'teammate killer' in F1 right now and one would think twice before pairing up alongside him.
