Top Gear’s Top 9: ultra dominant racing cars

Possibly the most all-conquering F1 car ever – time will tell. At the time of writing, Adrian Newey’s RB19 has won 16 out of 17 races in 2023, collecting 12 poles, 10 fastest laps and 24 podiums. It makes even the early turbo-hybrid Mercedes F1 cars look like a bit of a pushover.

Might not be Sergio Perez’s favourite, mind you…

The record-breaker Red bull has dethroned: the iconic McLaren which Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost steered to victory in all-but-one of the 1988 season’s races.

Masterminded by Steve Nichols and Gordon Murray, the Honda-powered MP4/4 began a four-year stranglehold on the constructor’s F1 title for the British team. Total dominance in F1 is nothing new, y’see.

Between 1982 and 1987, nothing won Le Mans except Porsche 956s. That’s how good it was.

Okay, by 1986 it was actually the later 962 iteration earning the champagne, but it very much had its genesis in the elegant longtail prototype dreamt up by Norbert Singer.

In 1983, nine of the top ten finishers were 956s. And you thought 911s were boringly good. 

Another Le Mans whitewasher, the Audi R8 (no not that one) was dominating Le Mans long before Audi brought turbodiesels to La Sarthe.

The bulletproof R8 won the endurance special in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004 and 2005.

Why the slip-up in 2003? The VW Group thought it would be nice to focus on Bentley instead, since it was the 80th anniversary of the first running of the event. 

From 1989 to 1993, there wasn’t much point in entering a race in the Japanese Touring Car Championship unless you happened to be behind the wheel of an R32 GT-R. Its results? Entered 29, won 29. And four consecutive titles. The R32 was so unbeatable it pretty much killed off the Group A Touring series.

However, it’s thought this run of success was the genesis of the nickname ‘Godzilla’, for being a monster that destroyed everything in its path.

The Canadian-American Challenge Cup, or Can-Am series, was once nicknamed ‘The Bruce & Denny Show’ due to the four-titles-on-the-bounce domination of New Zealanders Bruce McLaren and Kenny Hulme.

They drove the McLaren M6 at first, then its evolution: the mighty M8, in which McLaren was tragically killed in a testing accident at Goodwood in 1970.

Good for between 600 and 750bhp, these ‘Batmobiles’ were indeed the launchpad for McLaren as a motorsport force. 

While Group B rally cars are the most hallowed and celebrated, for crushing dominance you need to look at more recent WRC contenders.

From 2013 to 2016 the Polo won four straight titles in the talented hands of Sebastien Ogier, taking a staggering 43 wins from 52 rallies.

Chances are, if you’re wanting to be a successful rallyist, being called ‘Seb’ helps. 

Another rallying great, driven by a rallying great. Called Seb, naturally. Monsieur Loeb won nine out of ten WRC titles between 2004 and 2012, but within that incredible run one of the standout stats is the C4 WRC won all 13 of the tarmac rallies it competed in.

For rallies where there’s no dirt or snow, you want this Citroen hatchback – it’s literally unbeatable. So long as you’re named Sebastien.

Another car which was so good it broke the championship it was built for, this. The CLK GTR was a classic homologation special: a purpose built racing car muscling into the FIA GT Championship with 28 road-going versions offered to collectors to appease the rulemakers.

It dominated the McLaren F1 GTR, Porsche 911 GT1 and the likes of Marcos and Lister so hard, taking eight wins from 13 races, every other manufacturer packed up and left GT1 altogether.