With time on our hands, we’re in contemplative mood, and we’re asking the question: which two drivers would make the ultimate McLaren team?

These are the questions we’re asking this month – and we want you to tell us who would make the cut. We’ve drawn up the short-lists of our 16 most successful drivers, all of whom have multiple McLaren victories, and pitted them against each other to battle across the decades, knock-out style, for your favour.

The drivers

Drivers	Races	Races for McLaren	Race wins	Drivers' Championships
Fernando Alonso	314	95	32	2
Gerhard Berger	210	48	10	0
Jenson Button	308	137	15	1
David Coulthard	247	150	13	0
Emerson Fittipaldi	145	29	14	2
Mika Häkkinen	163	132	20	2
Lewis Hamilton*	250	110	84	6
Denny Hulme	112	86	8	1
James Hunt	92	49	10	1
Niki Lauda	172	58	25	3
Juan Pablo Montoya	95	95	7	0
Alain Prost	202	109	51	4
Kimi Räikkönen*	315	88	21	1
Peter Revson	31	23	2	0
Ayrton Senna	161	96	41	3
John Watson	153	74	5	0

*Active driver

All drivers are referenced in an historical context as former McLaren drivers. We are in no way associating McLaren and/or our partners with these drivers.

Choose on the strength of statistics alone, or decide the numbers don’t tell the whole story, and factor in the strength of the competition, the ability to perform under pressure and the unique circumstances of every era or Championship. It’s up to you.

Opinion vs Data

That’s not all, our friends at Automation Anywhere have thrown us a curve ball. As leaders in Intelligent Automation, they have created a bot to sift through 54 years of grand prix history, providing statistical analysis and making its own selections based on data. But do statistics tell the whole story? Will McLaren’s fans agree with the machine or are there other criteria to consider? We’re interested to find out ourselves.

How to vote

The rules are very simple. Every day we will preview driver head-to-heads, opening the polls on our channels:

• McLaren's Twitter 
• McLaren's Instagram
• McLaren App

And remember, the channels each have equal weighting. We’ll extol the virtues of all involved – but the final decision is yours. The winner of each match will proceed to the next round, and the competition will continue until will have the ultimate driver pairing for the #McLarenUltimateTeam. 

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