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The2004 FIA Formula One World Championship was the 58th season ofFIAFormula One motor racing. It was the 55th FIA Formula One World Championship, and was contested over eighteen races from 7 March to 24 October 2004.
The championship was dominated byMichael Schumacher andFerrari, with Schumacher winning theDrivers' Championship for the seventh and final time. Schumacher's teammateRubens Barrichello finished the championship in second withJenson Button coming in third forBAR.Ferrari won the Constructors' Championship for a record 14th time ahead of BAR andRenault.
In this championship, several records were broken. Michael Schumacher won 13 races, breaking his record of 11 race wins in one season from2002. A record that stood until2013 when his compatriotSebastian Vettel equalled it before being broken byMax Verstappen in2022. He also broke the record for most consecutive World Drivers' titles (5) and Ferrari broke the record for most consecutive Constructors' titles (6).
As of 2025, this season was the last title forBridgestone tyres against competition to date.
The followingteams anddrivers competed in the 2004FIAFormula OneWorld Championship.
† All engines were 3.0 litre,V10 configuration.[6]
Four of the ten teams, Ferrari, Renault, Jaguar, and Toyota, were subsidiaries of major car companies. However,BAR was a division ofBritish American Tobacco. Williams and McLaren, both privately owned teams, had engine supply agreements withBMW andMercedes-Benz respectively, andHonda produced engines for BAR.
The other three teams,Jordan,Sauber andMinardi, were also privately owned but received little substantial sponsorship and consequently tended to end up toward the back of the grid. Sauber received Ferrari engines badged under thePetronas name and received sponsorship from theMalaysian oil and gas company.
Five constructors entered free practice only drivers over the course of the season.
| Constructor | Practice drivers | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Driver name | Rounds | ||
| BAR–Honda | 35 |  Anthony Davidson | All | |
| Jaguar–Cosworth | 37 |  Björn Wirdheim | All | |
| Toyota | 38 |  Ricardo Zonta Ryan Briscoe | 1–12 13–18 | |
| Jordan–Ford | 39 |  Timo Glock Robert Doornbos | 1–15 16–18 | |
| Minardi–Cosworth | 40 |  Bas Leinders | All1 | |
^1 – Leinders was entered as third driver for Round 1 but was refused aFIA Super Licence until he completed the required mileage in a Formula One car. He satisfied this requirement before the next race.
From the 2004 season onward, all the teams that did not finish in the top four in the previous year's Constructors' Championship were allowed to run a third car in the Friday practice session before each Grand Prix, for testing purposes. While other teams were permitted to have test drivers, they were not allowed to compete in the Friday practice.Sauber chose not to run its third driver in these sessions because of the added expense.
Qualifying was held entirely on Saturday and divided into two sessions, in each of which the driver was only allowed to complete one fast lap. In the first session, the drivers started in the order in which they finished the previous race (in the first race, the order was chosen according to the 2003 World Championship standings). This served to determine the order for the second session, which then determined the starting positions for the race. The second session took place directly after the first. The drivers drove in the reverse order of the first qualifying session. The warm-up on Sunday was abolished.[7]
The 2004 season also saw a change in technical regulations, including banningfully-automatic gearboxes andlaunch control, both of which had been used for the past three seasons. 2004 was the first time since the beginning of2001 (pre-Spanish Grand Prix) that cars competed without these systems. However, the use oftraction control was still permitted by theFIA, and continued to be allowed for use over the next three seasons, until it was banned for the2008 season.[8][9][10]
To reduce costs, a rule was introduced that each engine must last the entire race weekend. If an engine needs to be replaced during the weekend, the driver will be penalized by a ten-place grid penalty.
The speed limit in the pit lane was increased from 80 km/h to 100 km/h. However, in some cases this was waived for safety reasons.
The 2004 Formula One calendar featured two new events: theBahrain Grand Prix and theChinese Grand Prix, held at two newly built circuits inSakhir andShanghai. The season featured the most races outside Europe to that point; eight Grands Prix were held in the Americas, Asia, and Oceania. TheBrazilian Grand Prix moved from its traditional early season slot to become the season finale, whereas theUnited States Grand Prix moved from its previous date in late September to late June as a back-to-back race with theCanadian Grand Prix.
The only exit was theAustrian Grand Prix, after seven years of racing at theA1-Ring, the modified circuit oldÖsterreichring. The grandstands and pit buildings were demolished during the year, rendering the track unusable for any motorsport category. The circuit eventually reopened in 2011 as theRed Bull Ring and was later reinstated to the F1 calendar in 2014.
Ferrari dominated the opening weekend atAlbert Park in Australia, comfortably locking out the front row in qualifying and earning a 1–2 in the race.[13]Michael Schumacher set the fastest lap of the race on his way to a lights-to-flag victory, with teammateRubens Barrichello andRenault'sFernando Alonso joining him on the podium.[14] Schumacher followed that up with another pole and victory atSepang, finishing ahead ofJuan Pablo Montoya andJenson Button, the British driver scoring his first career podium and theBAR Honda team's best result since the2001 German Grand Prix.Mark Webber, who split the Ferraris in qualifying in his unfanciedJaguar, suffered a poor start before colliding withRalf Schumacher and spinning out.[15]
Formula One's first visit to the Arab world since the1958 Moroccan Grand Prix took place at theBahrain International Circuit. The Ferrari duo of Schumacher and Barrichello once again finished 1–2 in both qualifying and the race, with Button's second consecutive podium elevating him to third in the Drivers' Championship as the series headed for Europe.[16]
Jenson Button scored his and BAR's maiden pole at theSan Marino Grand Prix, but Michael Schumacher overtook him on the eighth lap and finished nearly ten seconds ahead. Button and Juan Pablo Montoya completed the rostrum—the latter beating Fernando Alonso to the line by just two seconds—whileKimi Räikkönen recorded his first finish of the season in eighth, using a two-stop strategy to claim the final point from last on the grid.[17] Despite suffering from a defective exhaust, Schumacher dominated theSpanish Grand Prix as well, as front-row starter Montoya retired with brake problems and early leaderJarno Trulli took third behind Rubens Barrichello.[18]
At theMonaco Grand Prix, Trulli scored his first career victory from pole after surviving intense pressure from Jenson Button. Rubens Barrichello in third was the only other driver on the lead lap, albeit more than a minute behind the leaders.[19] Teammate Schumacher was one of several front-runners who retired, the championship leader's five-win streak ending after a collision with Juan Pablo Montoya under the safety car. That safety car period was necessitated by Fernando Alonso, who slammed the barrier on lap 42 while attempting to lap theWilliams of Ralf Schumacher in the tunnel. Earlier in the race, a fast-startingTakuma Sato suffered a spectacular engine failure on the third lap at the Tabac corner; the smoke from the rear of his BAR machine blinded the queue behind him, causingGiancarlo Fisichella to mount the back ofDavid Coulthard'sMcLaren and flip over.[20]Olivier Panis stalled as the race was due to begin, shortening the race to 77 laps as the remaining drivers completed a second formation lap. Panis later recovered to eighth place as he and sixth-placedCristiano da Matta scoredToyota's first points of the season.[20]
Michael Schumacher returned to his winning ways by leading the majority of theEuropean Grand Prix at theNürburgring, with Barrichello and Button following him home in second and third.[21] Ralf Schumacher, meanwhile, collided with da Matta at the start, causing both cars to retire from the race. Front-row starter and one-time leader Sato joined the list of retirements with a late engine failure, as did the McLaren duo of Räikkönen and Coulthard, both of whose Mercedes engines expired at the manufacturer's home race.[22]
At theCanadian Grand Prix,Timo Glock replacedGiorgio Pantano atJordan for financial reasons.[23] Ralf Schumacher qualified on pole position, joined by Jenson Button on the front row, with Michael Schumacher only starting from sixth. After a series of lead changes, the elder Schumacher ultimately crossed the line first, followed by his brother and Rubens Barrichello.[24] But the Williams of Ralf Schumacher—along with his fifth-placed teammate Juan Pablo Montoya and the Toyotas of Cristiano da Matta and Olivier Panis in eighth and tenth—would later be excluded from the results due to an irregularity in the brake ducts, promoting Barrichello to second and Button to third. The McLaren and Jordan teams were also beneficiaries of the four disqualifications, with Glock—in his Formula One début—andNick Heidfeld both scoring points.[25]
Barrichello qualified on pole for theUnited States Grand Prix, with Michael Schumacher alongside him. Schumacher would go on to win once more as Barrichello and Takuma Sato—scoring his first and only Formula One podium—completed the top three.[26] It was a race dominated by accidents, however, beginning with a first-lap incident that eliminatedGianmaria Bruni, Giorgio Pantano,Felipe Massa andChristian Klien. On the ninth lap, Fernando Alonso suffered a puncture and crashed at the end of the start-finish straight, with Ralf Schumacher crashing at the oval section for the same reason on the following lap.[26] Schumacher suffered a concussion and fractured vertebrae in that final-corner accident, which kept him out of the following six races.[27] Thanks to the high attrition rate, only eight cars crossed the line; the final finisher wasZsolt Baumgartner, who became Hungary's first points scorer and earned theMinardi team their first point since2002.[26]
InFrance, Michael Schumacher beat Alonso with a clever four-stop strategy.[28] Barrichello overtook the second Renault of Jarno Trulli on the final corner of the race to snatch third place, whileMarc Gené, who replaced the injured Ralf Schumacher at Williams for the French andBritish Grands Prix, finished tenth.[29] Michael Schumacher overpowered polesitter Kimi Räikkönen to take his tenth win of the season at Silverstone. Räikkönen, who finished second, bagged McLaren's first podium in 2004, ahead of Barrichello in third. The race was notable for Jarno Trulli's massive accident, the Italian losing control of his car at Bridge and hitting the tyre barrier before rolling in the gravel trap.[30]
Schumacher won from pole at theGerman Grand Prix, beating Jenson Button—who started thirteenth after a ten-place penalty for an engine change—and Fernando Alonso.[31] Front-row starter Juan Pablo Montoya could only manage a fifth-place finish, while his new teammateAntônio Pizzonia finished seventh.[32] After setting the fastest lap of the race, Kimi Räikkönen suffered a high-speed rear wing failure at the end of the start-finish straight on lap 14 and crashed into the tyre wall.[31]
A string of disappointing results from Toyota's Cristiano da Matta led to his replacement by test driverRicardo Zonta from theHungarian Grand Prix onward.[33] There, Schumacher led another Ferrari 1–2 in both qualifying and the race to secure Ferrari the Constructors' trophy, with the race's 2003 winner Alonso completing the podium.[34]
TheBelgian Grand Prix also included numerous accidents and safety car periods. A first-lap collision between Mark Webber and Takuma Sato eliminated both of them; Zsolt Baumgartner avoided the initial wreckage but knocked teammate Gianmaria Bruni's car into the wall, which then bounced back and collected Giorgio Pantano.[35] On the thirtieth lap, Jenson Button suffered a right-rear puncture and lost control of his car, crashing into the Minardi of Zsolt Baumgartner that he was attempting to lap.[35] Kimi Räikkönen eventually won the race, his first of the year, from a lowly 10th place on the grid. Michael Schumacher finished second and thus secured himself the world title, as his forty-point gap to Rubens Barrichello—who finished the race third—was by that point insurmountable.[36]
At theItalian Grand Prix, Barrichello led a Ferrari 1–2 in front of the loyal Tifosi, although Schumacher, who started third, spun off on the first lap and had to rejoin the race at the back of the field.[37] Following the race, Jarno Trulli parted ways with Renault, with 1997 world championJacques Villeneuve returning to Formula One as his replacement.[38] Immediately before theChinese Grand Prix, fellow Italian Giorgio Pantano was dropped by the Jordan team and replaced once more by Timo Glock for the last three races.[39] That race was also won by Barrichello from pole, with Button and Räikkönen less than 2 seconds behind. Michael Schumacher started from the pit lane and could only make it to 12th place following several mistakes and a puncture, while a returning Ralf Schumacher retired with suspension damage.[40]
TheJapanese Grand Prix weekend was affected byTyphoon Ma-on, which caused widespread damage to parts of Japan and saw the postponement of qualifying to the morning of race day.[41] With the rain dying down in time for the race, Michael Schumacher took his 13th win from pole, with his brother Ralf starting and finishing second and Jenson Button completing the podium. A collision between David Coulthard and Rubens Barrichello—who set the fastest lap of the race—eliminated both of them from the Grand Prix.[42] Following his acrimonious split from Renault, Jarno Trulli finished eleventh in his first race for Toyota, while his teammate Olivier Panis retired from the sport after the race.[43]
TheBrazilian Grand Prix was won by Juan Pablo Montoya—who also set the fastest lap—from second on the grid, with his soon-to-be McLaren teammate Kimi Räikkönen and polesitter Barrichello finishing behind him.[44] It was Montoya's last outing for Williams and the team's last victory until the2012 Spanish Grand Prix.[45] It was also the final race for Minardi duo Zsolt Baumgartner and Gianmaria Bruni and the Jaguar team's last entry before they were bought byRed Bull.[46][47]David Coulthard finished his last season withMcLaren (the team he had been with since1996) without a podium finish during the season.
Points were awarded to the top eight classified finishers.[49]
| Position | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th | 6th | 7th | 8th |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Points | 10 | 8 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
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