Image credit: Rick Dikeman / Wikipedia / CC BY-SA 3.0
Looking back to the closest finishes in F1 history, victories are often measured in seconds but sometimes the difference and heartbreak can be so small it barely exists in the blink of an eye.
However, F1 has delivered some finishes close they seem almost impossible, moment that make fans hold their breath and drivers push far beyond the limits of what seems humanly possible.
These are not just races, they are split second snapshots in time, forever etched into F1 history.
1986 Spanish GP – Senna vs Mansell
Jerez, Spain, 1986. Ayrton Senna was in full defensive mode, holding off Nigel Mansell’s Williams. With just a few laps to go, Mansell made a bold gamble: he pitted for fresh tyres, giving him blistering speed but only a handful of laps to close a 20-second gap.
He was closing every lap, the British driver crown favorite roared down the main straight on the final lap, side by side with Ayrton Senna.
They crossed the line so close that even commentators were unsure who had won!
The official margin was just 0.014, Mansell had fallen short by barely the length of a front wing.
2002 United States GP – A Team Game Turned Photo Finish
This was different race, but it remains up there because the crossed the line together.
At Indianapolis in 2002, Ferrari were in a league of their own, Schumacher and Barrichello were far ahead that the team ordered a formation finish.
Schumacher tried to slow down to give Rubens the win, a gesture of friendship after a controversial season.
What they did not plan for was just how close it would be, Barrichello crossed the line 0.011 ahead, one of the smallest margins in modern F1 history.
It was a gift from Michael Schumacher, the team wanted differently to give more space to Schumacher for the rest of the season, but he did not wanted it.
1969 Italian GP – Monza’s First Slipstream Showdown
Monza has a history of producing breathtakingly close finishes, and the 1969 edition was no exception.
Jackie Steward and Jochen Rindt, and two other contenders battle nose to tail for almost the entire race.
The lead changed hands repeatedly, the crowd unsure who would emerge victorius.
In the end, Stewart took the win by 0.08 over Rindt, with the top four cars separated by less than two tenth of a second, it was proof that at Monza, timing your move to perfection is everything.
1982 Austrian GP – The Last Breath Victory
It was another intense race at the end, in the last few laps Keke Rosberg was closing the gap on Elio de Angelis.
This circuit was known as dangerous back in the day, everyone was holding their breath at the end and Elio knew how to defend his position and he was trying very hard to stay on track and pushing at the same time.
On the final lap, Rosberg mounted one last attack, the two cars racing side by side to the finish.
De Angelis won by just 0.05, earning his first GP victory in f1, his relief was matched only by the roar of the Italian fans, who had just witnessed a new star being born.
1971 Italian GP – The Fastest, Closest Finish Ever
Monza in 1971, was more like a rolling battlefield than a normal race track.
Back then the circuit’s long straights and slipstream, layout meant cars were locked in a constant fight, losing and gaining positions.
However, Peter Gethin, driving for BRM, was hardly the favorite to win, yet as the final lap unfolded, he found himself in the midle of a five car for victory.
Gethin crossed the line 0.01 ahead of Ronnie Peterson, the top five cars were covered by just 0.61, a record which still stands more than a half a century.
And if that was not enough, the average speed of the race was 242.615 km/h, making it the fastest F1 race in history at the time.
What can we say more?
These races are more than numbers on a timing sheet. They show the human side of F1 — the risk, the instinct, the split-second decisions. In the age of DRS, digital timing, and ultra-precise engineering, margins are still tiny, but in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, it was raw courage and intuition that decided the outcome.
The next time you see a Grand Prix end with a big gap between first and second, remember — sometimes, the greatest moments in F1 happen when two cars cross the line almost as one.
