Formula One: Who is the greatest driver of all-time?

Ayrton Senna

Ayrton Senna is the driver who most people who don’t consider Michael Schumacher to be the greatest Formula One driver of all-time consider to be the greatest driver of all-time. He was able to experience a great amount of success through his numerous accomplishments during his career before being killed in a crash during the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix at the young age of 34.

In 161 career Formula One races, Senna was victorious in 41 of them over the course of 10 full-time seasons. It was in the third race of his 11th full-time season that he was killed, leaving many to believe what could have been given the amazing amount of success he had experienced through his career up until his death.

Senna sits 3rd on the all-time poles list with 65, and his pole percentage of 40.37% in 161 races is far better than the pole percentages of the two drivers in front of him on that list, showing just how naturally talented and fast he was.

Like I mentioned above, people were and still are left wondering what might have been had Senna not been killed in the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix. After all, he had won at least one race in nine consecutive seasons up until that point and was attempting to tie and then pass Alain Prost’s record of 10 with a win in 1994. Those nine consecutive seasons rank 4th on the all-time list even over 23 years after his death.

While there are so many “what-ifs” surrounding the shortened career of Ayrton Senna, it is impossible to exclude him from a conversation revolving around some of the Formula One drivers who are possibly the greatest of all-time.