When did a customer team last win the F1 title?

For decades top Formula 1 teams have sought works engine partnerships with manufacturers and been convinced they can’t win championships as engine customers.

Mercedes customer McLaren’s 2024 F1 constructors’ title is therefore ground-breaking.

But when was the last time a team with a customer engine won that title?

The answer is actually debatable.

There is a case to argue that it was in 2010, when Red Bull took the first of its run of four championship doubles using Renault power.

This was effectively a crossover season in which Red Bull was Renault’s primary F1 team but couldn’t necessarily be regarded as its factory representative.

The works Renault team was still on the grid with Renault branding in 2010 even though it had been sold at the end of 2009, and Red Bull was paying for the Renault engines it used as Sebastian Vettel won his first title. But the works Renault team’s change of situation meant Red Bull was Renault’s priority team and that situation was formalised from 2011 onwards.

So the last team to win the title unequivocally as a customer was Brawn in 2009.

The ex-Honda team received a late deal for Mercedes customer engines when it was revived from oblivion by a management buyout. McLaren was Mercedes' works representative that year, but was one of the big guns wrong-footed by Brawn mastering the double diffuser rules loophole and making use of all the preparation Honda had done for the 2009 rule changes while struggling as McLaren and Ferrari dominated the end of the previous aero regulations era.

Ironically having won the titles as a customer, Brawn then became the Mercedes works team when it was bought ahead of 2010 and went on to dominate the hybrid era.

Prior to that, you had to go all the way back to 1981 to find a constructors’ title won by a customer team.

That was when Williams became the final team to pull off a constructors’ win using the once ubiquitous Ford Cosworth DFV engines before the manufacturers mastered turbocharged technology and all the top teams with DFVs flocked towards works engine deals too.