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McLaren won all but one race in 1988 with engine partner Honda, and remains a championship contender in the present day
level before entering Formula One. British F3 has supplied many F1 drivers, with champions including Nigel Mansell, Ayrton Senna and Mika Häkkinen having moved straight from that series to Formula One. More rarely a driver may be picked from an even lower level, as was the case with 2007 World Champion Kimi Räikkönen, who went straight from Formula Renault to F1.
American Championship Car Racing has also contributed to the Formula One grid with mixed results. CART Champions Mario Andretti and Jacques Villeneuve became F1 World Champions. Other CART or ChampCar Champions, like Michael Andretti and Cristiano da Matta won no races in F1. Other drivers have taken different paths to F1; Damon Hill raced motorbikes, and Michael Schumacher raced in sports cars, albeit after climbing through the junior single seater ranks. To race, however, the driver must hold an FIA Super Licence–ensuring that the driver has the requisite skills, and will not therefore be a danger to others. Some drivers have not had the license when first signed to a F1 team; Räikkönen received the license despite having only 23 car races to his credit.
Beyond F1
Most F1 drivers retire in their mid to late 30s; however, many keep racing in disciplines which are less physically demanding. The German touring car championship, the DTM, is a popular category involving ex-drivers such as two-time champion Mika Häkkinen and F1 race winners David Coulthard and Ralf Schumacher. Some F1 drivers have left to race
in America—Nigel Mansell and Emerson Fittipaldi duelled for the 1993 CART title, while Juan Pablo Montoya, Nelson Piquet Jr and Scott Speed have moved to NASCAR. Some drivers, such as Vitantonio Liuzzi, Narain Karthikeyan and Jos Verstappen went on to race in the A1 Grand Prix, and others, like Gerhard Berger and Alain Prost, returned to F1 as team owners. Since its inaugural season in 2008, Superleague Formula has attracted such ex-Formula One drivers as Sébastien Bourdais, Antônio Pizzonia and Giorgio Pantano. A series for former Formula One drivers, called Grand Prix Masters, ran briefly in 2005 and 2006. Others have become colour commentators for TV coverage such as James Hunt (BBC), Martin Brundle (BBC and ITV), Luciano Burti for Globo (Brazil), and Jean Alesi for Italian national network RAI. Others, such as Damon Hill and Jackie