Formula 1 has been around since 1950 and has seen all kinds of cars and tracks in its first 71 years. After more than 1,000 races, who are the sport’s top 25 drivers of all-time?
With another Formula 1 offseason nearing its end and the 2021 season scheduled to get underway later this month, let’s take a look at the sport from an all-time perspective.
Who are the top 25 drivers of all-time?
While it is impossible to compare drivers from so many different eras and there will naturally be many deserving drivers left off the list given the fact that Formula 1 competition dates back to 1950, here is a list of 25 drivers who we believe fit the bill as being among the greatest the sport has ever seen.
NOTE: Drivers from all eras considered and included.
Top Formula 1 drivers of all-time: #25 – Max Verstappen
Let me first be clear when I say that potential is not the only thing that factored into this ranking. Otherwise, how can you omit guys such as Charles Leclerc, George Russell and Lando Norris?
No; Max Verstappen is the real deal, and he has already proven it. Yes, there is an aspect of potential to this ranking, but what he has already done shows us that there is a heck of a lot more to consider than what he “might” do.
Verstappen is not a world champion, but as the youngest driver to reach 10 wins, he has all the makings of a future one, and he has already proven his ability to get the absolute most out of his machinery, even when it may not be the best on the grid.
Additionally, his prowess in the rain, highlighted by one particular performance in his rookie season and a dominant effort in 2019 that led to a victory, has been likened to that of another legend of the sport who you won’t find for another several slides.
It will be interesting to see what the 23-year-old can do in the near future, especially with Red Bull aiming to unseat Mercedes as the top team in the sport and with the new rules and regulations set to come into effect in 2022.
Top Formula 1 drivers of all-time: #24 – Kimi Raikkonen
The 2020 Formula 1 season saw Kimi Raikkonen become the most experienced driver of all-time, save for safety car driver Bernd Mayländer, and he has done more than enough throughout his two-part career to classify himself as one of the sport’s top 25 drivers of all-time.
Raikkonen won a career-high seven races in the 2005 season, including the Monaco Grand Prix, with McLaren after having never won more than one race in three previous seasons with the team, but it wasn’t quite enough to win the world championship.
With a six-win 2007 season, his first season as a Ferrari driver, he secured their first world championship since seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher won his fifth in a row with the team in 2004 to cap off the most dominant stretch in the sport’s history.
To this day, his 2007 title is the most recent driver title for the sport’s all-time most successful team, which haven’t managed to win another constructor since the 2008 season. The 2008 season was the penultimate season of Raikkonen’s first stint there.
After a two-year hiatus from Formula 1 in 2010 and 2011 in which he competed in other forms of motorsport, including NASCAR, he returned and won one race in both 2012 and 2013 with Lotus.
Until the 2020 season, his Lotus win in 2013 was the most recent win for a team other than Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull. “The Iceman” will forever have a spot as one of Formula 1’s top drivers.
Top Formula 1 drivers of all-time: #23 – Gilles Villeneuve
Talent-wise, Gilles Villeneuve deserves a higher spot on this list. You could argue top five. Unfortunately, his career was cut short due to a fatal accident during qualifying for the 1982 Belgian Grand Prix at Zolder, and he never got to showcase his true potential in terms of racking up wins and championships.
Among drivers who never managed to win a world title, Villeneuve is arguably the best, with only a few others deserving serious consideration. He was killed with just six victories to his name, but one of those victories was a victory in the crown jewel Monaco Grand Prix.
Villeneuve was famous for living life on the edge, doing this behind the wheel of his car that nobody else would think of doing, much less could actually do. The examples of such performances practically make up a never-ending list.
He left behind a legacy that will never be forgotten by those who got to witness him, and one that will never quite be able to be matched by any other driver in Formula 1.
He was the sport’s ideal entertainer, and he left behind the legacy of a world champion despite never having had the opportunity to become one prior to his death at the age of 32.
Top Formula 1 drivers of all-time: #22 – James Hunt
To be a successful Formula 1 driver — or to even ascend to the level of being able to classify yourself as anything remotely close to a Formula 1 driver — you would assume that you would need incredible focus, incredible discipline and incredible drive to be the best at your craft.
That is all but implied, whether we are talking about this day and age or several decades ago.
Suffice it to say that James Hunt didn’t exactly have that when he competed in Formula 1 in the 1970s, and we’ll leave it at that.
But that didn’t stop him from quickly becoming a world champion.
Of course, he benefited from the infamous Niki Lauda crash at the Nurburging, among other various controversies throughout the iconic 1976 season which was recently documented in Ron Howard’s 2013 film Rush. Otherwise, he may very well be among the greatest non-champions of all-time.
Even with that world title, Hunt is another driver who never lived up to his full potential. In fact, he only competed in the sport for five full seasons, never returning following his retirement from the 1979 Monaco Grand Prix.
Like Gilles Villeneuve, on talent alone, you cannot say definitively that Hunt does not deserve a spot in the top five or top 10 on this list.
To go along with his 10 Formula 1 wins, including six in 1976 alone, he recorded four wins, including two in 1976, and an additional two podium finishes in 11 Formula 1 non-championship races.
Top Formula 1 drivers of all-time: #21 – Nico Rosberg
In 2016, just days before his unexpected retirement, Nico Rosberg joined father Keke by becoming a Formula 1 world champion, making the Rosberg name just the second to produce a father-son championship duo.
He did so in a dramatic season finale that saw teammate and championship rival Lewis Hamilton strategically try to force him into a mistake to erase the five-point difference between the two in the driver standings.
It didn’t work, and Rosberg, who sits in a 12th place tie on the all-time wins list, prevailed.
It’s no secret that the V6 turbo hybrid era, which began back in 2014, has resulted in sheer dominance from Mercedes, and 2016 was no exception.
In fact, it was arguably the team’s most dominant season, as they won 19 of 21 races and lost one potential victory thanks to a first-lap collision between Rosberg and Hamilton that ended the former’s seven-race winning streak and further fueled the bitter rivalry between the two.
It is true that, for all intents and purposes, Hamilton dominated Rosberg during their four seasons as teammates, specifically in 2014 and 2015 when he won both world titles.
But more than four years after his 2016 title, Rosberg remains the only driver to beat the dominant Hamilton during the era of Mercedes dominance. Without his gutsy effort, Hamilton would be entering the 2021 season as a seven-time reigning champion and the sport’s lone eight-time champion.
He deserves a ton of credit for making that happen, especially for using a seven-race winning streak from 2015 to 2016 to get his championship-winning season off to a start that Hamilton could ultimately not overcome, not even by closing out the year with four straight wins.
While he is still criticized for walking away when he did, he deserves credit for going out on top after achieving his ultimate goal.
Top Formula 1 drivers of all-time: #20 – Mika Hakkinen
Coming in at #20 is Mika Hakkinen, also known as the “Flying Finn”. It took him until the final race of his seventh season in Formula 1 and his fifth with McLaren to finally secure his first career victory. From that point forward, he was tough to beat in the right equipment.
Hakkinen got his first career win in his 96th career start, which took place in the 1997 European Grand Prix at Circuito Permanente de Jerez, and what he did over the next few seasons pushed him into this position on this list.
He won 19 races over his final four seasons of competition, which included 65 starts. He won half of the 16 races on the 1998 schedule to secure his first world championship, including the crown jewel Monaco Grand Prix, and he went on to win the 1999 title with five victories as well to become just the eighth driver to win back-to-back championships.
He won another four races in the 2000 but finished runner-up in the championship battle to none other than Michael Schumacher, who went on to win the next four world titles as well. Although many would argue that he clearly had something left in the tank following his two-win 2001 season, he retired from Formula 1.
Top Formula 1 drivers of all-time: #19 – Mario Andretti
Arguably the greatest IndyCar driver of all-time and arguably the greatest race car driver — period — of all-time, Mario Andretti made his mark in other series outside of IndyCar, including NASCAR and Formula 1.
Unlike in IndyCar and NASCAR, where he won multiple crown jewel races (Indy 500 and Grand Prix of Long Beach in IndyCar, Daytona 500 in NASCAR), Andretti never won the crown jewel Monaco Grand Prix in Formula 1. But he did win the 1978 championship.
He is most known for his incredible success in American open-wheel racing, so it is quite fitting that he remains the most recent American Formula 1 world champion to this day, having won that title 43 seasons ago now.
He also won the iconic rain-soaked 1976 season finale at Fuji Speedway, the site of the conclusion of the epic championship battle between Niki Lauda and James Hunt. Even now, he admits that he couldn’t see a thing in what was one of the best wet weather performances of all-time.
In NBC Sports’ Drive Like Andretti documentary from 2019, rapper Ice-T referred to Mario Andretti as the “OG OG”. While Andretti may not have known what that meant had you told him that after he got out of his championship-winning car back in 1978, the fact that we are still having this discussion more than four decades later shows just how accurate that comment is.
Top Formula 1 drivers of all-time: #18 – Graham Hill
Graham Hill is similar to Mario Andretti in that if this were an all-time motorsport list instead of just an all-time Formula 1 list, he would probably be closer to the top.
And that’s by no means a knock on his Formula 1 achievements. His 14 victories are tied for 19th place on the all-time wins list, and he is one of only 16 drivers to win at least two titles. He easily could have won more, given his three runner-up finishes, as well.
The one knock against him here is a mere statistical argument, and we only bring it up because of the fact that it’s the only way to truly compare drivers from different eras.
He earned his 14 victories in 176 starts, giving him a winning percentage of 7.95%. That’s higher than only two of the other 20 drivers with at least 14 career wins: Kimi Raikkonen (6.36%) and Jenson Button (4.90%).
But the specifics of Hill’s career are what made him great, in that he shined brightest in the most significant moments.
His victories in the crown jewel Monaco Grand Prix make up more than one-third of his career Formula 1 win total, as he won the race five times, which ranks in a second place tie with Michael Schumacher behind only Ayrton Senna (six).
Hill is also the only driver in history to win all three races of the Triple Crown of Motorsport, and he earned a combined seven wins in them. He earned his five Monaco Grand Prix wins in a seven-year span from 1963 to 1969, winning in 1963, 1964, 1965, 1968 and 1969 to become known as “Mr. Monaco”.
At that point, nobody else had ever won it more than three times. Only one driver had won it more than twice, and only two others had won it more than once.
He failed to qualify for the Indy 500 in 1963, but he returned in 1966 and not only qualified but won the race in his debut. And finally, after two runner-up finishes in 1964 and 1965, he won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1972 to seal the deal.
The fact that his status as the only driver to win all three races still stands nearly five decades later is incredible, especially since he did it all within 10 seasons.
And we’ll talk more about him in a few slides.
Top Formula 1 drivers of all-time: #17 – Emerson Fittipaldi
Like both Mario Andretti and Graham Hill, Emerson Fittipaldi would be ranked higher on this list if it were purely ranking the greatest race car drivers of all-time, and once again, that’s not to say that his Formula 1 achievements aren’t significant.
Fittipaldi’s stats match Hill’s exactly when it comes to wins and championships, and he won 14 races and two world titles, with his two titles coming in 1972 and 1974.
He did it in fewer races, 144 to Hill’s 176, to give him a slightly higher winning percentage (9.72% to 7.95%), but he never managed to win the Monaco Grand Prix, which Hill won five times.
He is in good company among multi-time world champions who never won Formula 1’s crown jewel race, however, along with three-time champion Nelson Piquet, two-time champion Jim Clark and two-time champion Alberto Ascari being the the only other three drivers in that category.
Fittipaldi’s crossover to American open-wheel racing for the 1980s and 1990s was arguably the most successful crossover that open-wheel racing has ever seen to this day.
Fittipaldi joined Andretti as an Indy 500 winner and an American open-wheel champion in 1989, when he won both the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing” and then went on to win the CART championship. He then became the 13th driver to win the “Greatest Spectacle in Racing” twice with his second win in 1993.
He also infamously became the first driver to drink orange juice in victory lane that year, an incident that some fans still hold against him to this day. To put that in perspective, his grandson Pietro has now competed in both Formula 1 and IndyCar.
Top Formula 1 drivers of all-time: #16 – Damon Hill
Carrying on Graham Hill’s legacy was son Damon Hill, who comes in at #16 on this list despite not becoming a full-time driver in Formula 1 until he was 32 years old and only spending a few seasons competing in the sport.
In those few seasons, Hill managed to win 22 races, good for 14th on the all-time wins list. Just 16 drivers have won at least 20 races in their Formula 1 career, and Hill made the fourth fewest starts among those drivers with only 115, giving him a win percentage of 19.13%. That mark ranks higher than five of the 13 drivers who have more wins than he does.
Hill only won one world championship despite starting his full-time career with four consecutive top three finishes in the driver standings, including two runner-up results, but that one title, which he earned in the 1996 season, was historic in more ways than one.
Damon’s world title made the Hill name just the second to produce a father-son championship duo, as Graham won two world titles in 1962 and 1968.
Only one other name, Rosberg, has joined that family list, with Keke winning in 1982 and Nico joining him in 2016.
Unfortunately, Hill only won one more race outside of this four-year span. He competed for three more seasons after winning the title in 1996 and won the 1998 Belgian Grand Prix at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps. He retired after a winless 1999 season, which was just his seventh as a full-time driver.
He also never managed to win the Monaco Grand Prix, a race his father won five times.
Top Formula 1 drivers of all-time: #15 – Jack Brabham
Following the dominant era of Juan Manuel Fangio in the sport’s early years, Jack Brabham effectively took over as Formula 1’s next top driver.
While Mike Hawthorn was the first to win a world championship in the post-Fangio era in 1958, Brabham won the titles in 1959 and 1960 to become just the third driver to win multiple titles, and he won it again in 1966 to become only the second to win three.
Brabham and Fangio remained the only drivers to win more than two titles until Jackie Stewart came along and won them in every odd year from 1969 to 1973 to cement his own legacy as one of the sport’s all-time greats.
But for as legendary of a career as he had, Brabham’s win total wasn’t nearly what some others were. He won just 14 races over his 16-year career, and 11 of those wins came in his three championship seasons.
He did get his first career victory in the sport’s crown jewel, the Monaco Grand Prix, to open up the 1959 season, which propelled him to the first of his three championship runs. However, he never ended up winning that particular race again.
While this doesn’t necessarily help or hurt him in these rankings considering there were fewer races per season in Brabham’s day, his wins per championship tally is interesting to note. It is the lowest for any driver in Formula 1 history who won more than four races and at least one title.
He won just 4.67 races for each title he won, excluding his 16 victories in non-championship Formula 1 competition. Only three multi-time champions won fewer races than Brabham. All of them won either 13 or 14 races, and all of them won two titles.
Who is next closest to him on this list? Fangio at 4.80. So again, he is in good company.
The only two who are lower are three-time race winners Hawthorn and Phil Hill, who won one title apiece and competed in 45 and 48 races, respectively.
Top Formula 1 drivers of all-time: #14 – Stirling Moss
Unless somebody such as Max Verstappen goes on to win dozens more races and never a world championship, Stirling Moss will likely be considered Formula 1’s top driver who never secured a world title for many more decades, if not longer.
Moss only competed in 66 races throughout his Formula 1 career, and he won 16 of them, good for 17th place on the all-time wins list. The next highest non-champion on the list is David Coulthard, who sits in a 22nd place tie with 13. But he did that in nearly four times as many starts (246).
While all of the drivers ahead of Moss on the all-time wins list were crowned world champions, including 12 who were crowned champion multiple times, only seven of those16 drivers have a higher winning percentage than he does (24.24%).
Moss competed in the sport on a full-time basis on seven occasions, doing so from 1955 to 1961, and he never finished outside of third place in the driver standings during that span. He retired with four runner-up finishes and three third place finishes in the standings.
He also won the Monaco Grand Prix three times, and he became the first driver to pull off that feat when he won it during his final season in 1961. To this day, three wins in Formula 1’s crown jewel race is a mark only surpassed by four other drivers.
Throughout his career, he added 19 victories in non-championship Formula 1 races as well. He sadly passed away last year, which led many to recall the legendary championship-caliber career he had without actually winning at title.
Top Formula 1 drivers of all-time: #13 – Nigel Mansell
Nigel Mansell comes in at #13 on this list, although we would have no argument against ranking him a few spots higher based on how he wrapped up his career in the 1990s. He won 31 races throughout his Formula 1 career, but his success wasn’t limited to that.
Unfortunately for Mansell, despite ranking seventh on the all-time wins list, he was only crowned world champion one time and is the winningest driver not to win at least two titles. He finished in the runner-up position on three occasions.
The next highest driver on the wins list to only win one world title is Nico Rosberg, who won 23 races and won the 2016 title. Rosberg sits five spots below Mansell on the wins list in a 12th place tie with three-time champion Nelson Piquet.
Rosberg, like Mansell, never competed full-time again after winning his title, going out on top, although Mansell did return to Formula 1 for a few more races following his 1992 triumph after going to IndyCar full-time in 1993 and 1994. In fact, Mansell ended up getting another victory in 1994 before officially retiring in 1995.
Let’s also not forget what he did in IndyCar in what was arguably the most successful crossover story in the history of the two series. He won the title in the first of his two seasons with five victories in 15 races in 1993, and that included a third place finish in his Indy 500 debut.
One other knock against him, however, is that he is also the winningest Formula 1 driver not to win the Monaco Grand Prix at least twice, and he never managed to take the checkered flag once. Still, his career achievements make it hard to not have him in the discussion for a top 10 spot on this list, and he comes up just shy.
Top Formula 1 drivers of all-time: #12 – Nelson Piquet
Speaking of Nelson Piquet, he comes in at #12 on this list as one of the more underappreciated stars of the sport 1980s, when he won all three of his world championships and secured many of his 23 race wins, which ranks in a 12th place tie on the all-time wins list with Nico Rosberg.
Piquet won his world titles for Parmalat Racing Team in 1981, Fila Sport in 1983 and Williams in 1987, giving him three titles for three different teams during an era that featured the likes of legends such as Alain Prost, Ayrton Senna among others.
He became the fifth three-time world champion on a list which now contains 10 drivers. When he won his third title in 1987, the only driver who had won more titles than he had was the great Juan Manuel Fangio, whose five championship mark from 1951 to 1957 did not end up being matched until 2002.
But unfortunately for Piquet, who had just one runner-up finish to go along with his three world titles, he is the only driver with three titles who never managed to win the Monaco Grand Prix, though he is in good company with the three two-time champions, including Jim Clark, Emerson Fittipaldi and Alberto Ascari, who never managed to do so.
Top Formula 1 drivers of all-time: #11 – Alberto Ascari
Speaking of Alberto Ascari, he comes in just outside the top 10 on this list. Ascari, like Stirling Moss, only competed in a handful of races throughout his Formula 1 career, and we can only wonder what his numbers would have looked like had had competed for longer.
Unfortunately, he did not get the chance to do so, as he was killed in a crash at Autodromo Nazionale di Monza, which now has a corner named after him, in the second race of the 1955 season.
Unlike Moss, Ascari only competed in 32 races, and he managed to win not one but two world championships. No other driver in Formula 1 history has ever won two world titles with under 72 starts.
He won 13 times, all as a Ferrari driver, in those 32 races, giving him a winning percentage of 40.63%, which ranks second on the all-time wins list. He added 11 wins in non-championship Formula 1 events.
He won his titles in back-to-back seasons in 1952 in 1953, becoming the first world champion for Ferrari, which have gone on to be the most successful team in Formula 1 history, and the first driver to ever win consecutive championships.
And he could not have been more dominant during that two-year span. After missing the season opener in 1952 and retiring from the Indy 500, he won the remaining six races en route to winning the title.
The following season, he won his first three starts, although he missed the Indy 500, the second race on the schedule. So his winning streak officially ended at seven instead of nine. His seven-race winning streak remained a record until Michael Schumacher tied it in 2004 and Sebastian Vettel broke it in 2013 with a nine-race winning streak.
Top Formula 1 drivers of all-time: #10 – Fernando Alonso
Many wonder what Fernando Alonso’s career would look like had he had the opportunity to spend more time competing in top-tier equipment, and that is despite the fact that he does have 32 victories to his name, which ranks sixth on the all-time list.
However, the last several seasons prior to his first retirement, which came after the 2018 season, were spent driving machinery that was just fortunate to score points on a semi-regular basis.
His 312 career starts rank third on the all-time starts list, but they also deflate his career winning percentage to just 10.26%, which is the lowest among the drivers who rank in the top 14 on the all-time wins list.
But his 32nd victory came in start number 202, at which point his winning percentage was 15.84%, higher than three of those other drivers. That took place early in the 2013 season. He hasn’t finished on the podium in any of his last 85 starts.
Alonso, a two-time Monaco Grand Prix winner, is set to come out of retirement in the 2021 season after two years away, and he is set to do so with Alpine, the team formerly known as Renault. Renault are the team with which he won both of his world championships in 2005 and 2006.
He won seven races in each of those two seasons, and 15 of his 32 wins came with the team, as he also secured his first career win in 2003 with them.
Whether or not Alpine can be competitive enough to get Alonso back on the podium, or even to the top step, remains to be seen, but he is set to return on a multi-year deal, which includes the 2022 season when the new rules and regulations are slated to take effect.
Top Formula 1 drivers of all-time: #9 – Niki Lauda
There are many reasons why three-time Formula 1 world champion Niki Lauda deserves to be considered one of the sport’s greatest drivers.
Ron Howard did all of us a favor in his 2013 film Rush, which highlighted the 1976 world championship battle between Lauda and James Hunt in which Lauda fought back from devastating injuries, to highlight many of them for those who weren’t around to witness it.
Lauda, who sadly passed away in 2019, won 25 races in 171 starts, good for a ninth place tie on the all-time wins list with Jim Clark, and he won Formula 1’s crown jewel race, the Monaco Grand Prix, twice. He is one of only seven drivers to win at least 25 races, three world titles and two Monaco Grands Prix, and he made the third fewest starts among that group.
It’s impossible to ignore the fact that even in his heroic 1976 season, which saw him miss multiple races as he recovered from his horrific crash at the Nurburgring, he didn’t come out on top in the championship battle.
So he easily could have been a four-time champion when he won his third and final title in 1984, although some do think that title is debatable given the half-points Monaco Grand Prix which effectively resulted in Alain Prost losing the championship.
Even with all the cards stacked against him in 1976, including not only questions about him continuing his racing career but questions about whether or not he would survive the accident, he only lost to Hunt by one point, and Hunt needed two wins leading up to the season finale and a Lauda retirement in the finale to win it.
Lauda, who entered the year as the reigning champion, did not win any of the four races in which he competed after the accident, while Hunt secured four victories in the final seven races.
Lauda got his first win following the accident the following season in the South African Grand Prix at Kyalami Circuit, propelling him to what would be his second championship run in three seasons. And his legendary post-race interview is still recalled to this day. Here’s how that went down, according to Formula 1.
"Later, he was asked questions by a journalist he thought he recognized. “I know you, don’t I?” he asked. “I don’t think so,” the journalist replied. But Lauda the computer read his memory bank, and recalled how cruel the man had been when he was vulnerable during the first press conference he made after his accident, when people saw for the first time the ravaged and scarred image he would forever present to the world. “I remember,” Lauda said. “You’re the guy who asked me what my wife would do now that I was ugly.” Raising his fresh-won trophy, he pointed it at the miscreant and said, “Well, you can shove this up your ass.”"
Top Formula 1 drivers of all-time: #8 – Sebastian Vettel
Depending on your view of modern-day drivers when it comes to all-time rankings and comparing drivers from different eras, you view Sebastian Vettel as either highly overrated or highly underrated on this list. Given his struggles in recent seasons, the former is probably more likely. But he still comes in at a solid #8.
Vettel is one of the drivers who many point to as having had the success he had primarily due to the dominance of his car, that being the Red Bull machine which won four consecutive world constructor championships from 2010 to 2013. During that span, the German driver won all four driver titles.
But as much as the car plays into it, it still takes an incredible level of skill to be able to pull off what Vettel pulled off, winning four titles in a row.
And let’s not forget that the 2010 and 2012 championship battles were by no means runaway victories for him, and in 2010, he had to deal with threats from quite a few drivers from other teams, not just his teammate.
His dominant 2011 and 2013 seasons shouldn’t be used against him, either. In 2011, he won 11 races, something that had only been pulled off by Michael Schumacher in his championship-winning 2002 and 2004 seasons, and his 2013 season was one of the greatest the sport had ever seen.
He won 13 races, tying Schumacher’s all-time record from the 2004 season, and at one point, he won nine races in a row, breaking the record of seven which had been set by Albert Ascari from 1952 to 1953 and then tied by Schumacher during his historic 2004 season.
With 53 victories, Vettel ranks third on the all-time list, and while it doesn’t appear as though he will be able to climb any higher, with second place Schumacher having 91, it does appear that his place inside the top three won’t be under threat in the immediate future.
Top Formula 1 drivers of all-time: #7 – Jim Clark
Jim Clark falls in the same category as drivers such as Stirling Moss and Alberto Ascari in that he did not have the chance to compete in a ton of races, yet what he did in his limited amount of time behind the wheel was quite remarkable.
Clark only competed in 72 races throughout his career, but he managed to win 25 of them and secure two world championships. His winning percentage of 34.72% ranks higher than all but one of the nine drivers ahead of him on the all-time wins list, and it is within 1% of that mark (35.71%). He also added 19 Formula 1 non-championship victories.
His 1963 season with Team Lotus was one of the best the sport had ever seen, as he won seven of the 10 races on the schedule and finished on the podium in two of the other three.
His 1965 championship-winning season is also well worth mentioning for multiple reasons. He started the season six for six, but he did not actually attempt all of the season’s first six races. In fact, he missed the crown jewel race, the Monaco Grand Prix, a race he never ended up winning.
But what was he doing instead? Competing in the Indianapolis 500. And not just competing in the race, but winning it in just his third attempt, two years after he finished runner-up.
Unfortunately, Clark’s career was cut short, as he was killed in a racing accident at the Hockenheimring in 1968 just months after he had won the season-opening South African Grand Prix at Kyalami Circuit. At only 32 years old, we can only imagine what else he would have been able to accomplish had he gotten the chance.
Top Formula 1 drivers of all-time: #6 – Jackie Stewart
Yet another driver who accomplished a ton despite not competing for nearly as long as many of the other all-time greatest drivers in Formula 1 history is Jackie Stewart.
Unlike many of the others, Stewart’s career was fortunately not cut short by a fatality, although he had suffered several injuries that led him to retire after just nine seasons of competition.
During those nine seasons, he competed in 99 races, and he was victorious in 27 of them. His winning percentage of 27.27% ranks higher than all but two of the seven drivers ahead of him on the all-time wins list.
Having decided that the 1973 season would be his last, he went out on top, winning the world championship.
He had entered the season having won two of the last four, and his third world championship made him just the third driver to win at least three titles, with the first two being Juan Manuel Fangio (1955) and Jack Brabham (1966). To this day, only five drivers have gone on to win the title more than three times.
Stewart also won the Monaco Grand Prix three times, and he became the third driver to do so when he won it for the third and final time during his final season in 1973. The first two were Stirling Moss (1961) and Graham Hill (1965). To this day, only four drivers have won it more than three times.
Top Formula 1 drivers of all-time: #5 – Alain Prost
As hard as it is not to think of his rivalry with Ayrton Senna when thinking about the role he played in Formula 1 during the late 1980s after becoming a two-time world champion with McLaren in 1986, Alain Prost himself is one of Formula 1’s greatest drivers of all-time himself and deserves a top five spot on this list, if not higher.
The fact that he and Senna took turns finishing in first and second place in the driver standings during their two battles as McLaren teammates in 1988 and 1989 further goes to show just how great of a driver Prost was. His 51 wins rank fourth on the all-time list.
Prost, like Jackie Stewart, went out on top, winning the world championship in the 1993 season before retiring. Prost entered the 1993 season having not competed since 1991 after taking a sabbatical in 1992. That title was his fourth, which trails only three drivers on the all-time list, and he easily could have had more, finishing runner-up on four occasions.
On one such occasion, many still feel that he was robbed due to a decision to turn the 1984 Monaco Grand Prix into a half-points race as a result of the fact that it was shortened due to poor conditions. By winning that race, Prost scored just 4.5 points instead of 9 points.
That ended up costing him the title, which would have been his first, as he finished the season with 71.5 points, second only to Niki Lauda’s 72. Lauda did not score any points in that race and therefore did not incur any reduction.
Prost had plenty of other success in the sport’s crown jewel race as well, winning it on three other occasions — in fact, all within the next four seasons. Only three drivers have ever won it more than Prost has, with one, of course, being the six-time winner Senna.
Top Formula 1 drivers of all-time: #4 – Lewis Hamilton
Old-school fans will say #4 is too high. Modern fans will say it’s too low to the point of disrespect. That is both why he’s not #1 and not outside the top 10. But Lewis Hamilton absolutely deserves to have his name in the discussion among the greatest drivers ever to drive a Formula 1 car.
With seven championships, a mark that trails nobody and is tied with only one other driver, and a record 95 victories (in just 266 races), Hamilton is the most successful driver in the history of the sport on paper. He has broken quite a few other records recently as well, and his pole record of 98 is now 30 clear of second.
He has won the last four world titles and six of the last seven, with a mere five points in 2016 being the difference between him being a seven-time world champion and a eight-time world champion/seven-time reigning world champion entering the 2021 season.
He also has recorded double-digit winning seasons on six occasions, including two streaks of three in a row. No other driver has ever recorded back-to-back seasons of that nature, and no other driver has recorded more than two overall.
There will always be the debate about whether or not he gets too much credit for the speed of the Mercedes car, given the dominance of the Silver Arrows since the V6 turbo hybrid era began in 2014. They have, in fact, won all seven world titles, both from a driver and constructor perspective.
But the fact that Hamilton has dominated his teammate battles, save for a slow start to 2016 that cost him a title to Nico Rosberg, goes to show that while the car is strong, he absolutely deserves credit for getting the most out of it race after race, year after year.
Top Formula 1 drivers of all-time: #3 – Juan Manuel Fangio
It’s a pity that Formula 1 only saw Juan Manuel Fangio compete in 51 races from 1950 to 1958. Even still, in those 51 races, Fangio did more than most were able to accomplish throughout much longer spans.
Fangio’s win percentage of 47.06%, which translates to 24 victories, good for 11th all-time, is the greatest in the history of the sport, and it would not be considered “going out on a limb” to say that this will never change.
While the V6 turbo hybrid era dominance of Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton itself has produced a win percentage that is actually slightly higher (52.55%, 72 wins in 137 races), Hamilton himself has no chance to break that record, and he may very well be the last driver ever to climb within 15% of it. Hamilton’s is 35.71% (95 for 266).
Back to Fangio. His 24 wins in 51 starts netted him five world championships, which remained an all-time record until the early 2000s. He won four in a row from 1954 to 1957 and five of six titles from 1951 to 1957. He did not compete in 1952 and he did not win the 1953 title.
To this day, only two drivers have surpassed five titles, and both needed streaks of at least four titles in a row to do so. Additionally, 10 of his 27 non-wins were second place finishes, and 10 others were retirements.
So he only ever actually “finished” outside the top two seven times. He nearly won that many titles!
He only competed in the Monaco Grand Prix four times. He won in his first and last attempts. In fact, his first Monaco victory was his first career Formula 1 victory.
Top Formula 1 drivers of all-time: #2 – Ayrton Senna
If there was ever a case of a driver’s career being cut too short due to a fatal crash, the name attached to that case is Ayrton Senna, who lost his life while leading the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix at Imola (Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari) in what was only his third race driving for Williams after leaving McLaren.
Senna saw the bulk of his success come with McLaren, when he won three world championships in a four-year span from 1988 to 1991.
His life ended with 41 career victories, which still ranks fifth on the all-time wins list, and if not for that fateful May day in 1994, that total would likely be far greater, likely at least good enough for third (53).
In fact, many believe Senna is the greatest driver not only in Formula 1 history but in the history of motorsport. While you could certainly make a case for others, it’s hard to make a surefire case against him.
When it came to getting everything out of the race car — raw speed — nobody was better than the three-time world champion, who took 65 pole positions for 162 races, including one for the race that ultimately saw his fatal crash.
And when it came to racing in the rain, you could pretty much consider the event over before it started. Senna was going to win, hands down, and there was nothing that anybody could do about it, as evidenced many, many times. This includes his success in the Monaco Grand Prix, where he is still the only six-time winner.
Top Formula 1 drivers of all-time: #1 – Michael Schumacher
Many have a hard time keeping Michael Schumacher ranked at #1 on this list because of the fact that Lewis Hamilton has come along and tied or broken many of his records.
But for now, we’re keeping him in the top spot. Let’s not forget the fact that it was Schumacher who sat atop many of the categories Hamilton has recently been coming for. Prior to the dominance of Hamilton and Mercedes, no other driver had won more than 51 races in Formula 1. Schumacher won 91.
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In fact, it was Schumacher whom Hamilton replaced at Mercedes ahead of the 2013 season, and many would argue that it was Schumacher’s insight that led to the development of championship-winning Silver Arrows machinery year in and year out, a trend that doesn’t appear likely to end in the near future.
The sport’s first six-time and then first seven-time world champion won his first two championships with a Benetton team that had never previously won the title, and he won the first of those two titles despite missing two races, being disqualified from two others and retiring from two others in a 15-race 1994 season.
But most remember him for his historic run with Ferrari following the turn of the millennium. Schumacher joined Ferrari in 1997, and after the 1999 season, he was simply not touchable for the next five seasons.
He won a record five consecutive world championships during that span. His 2002 season saw him finish lower than second place only once in 17 races (with a third place finish), and his 2004 season saw him win 12 races in a 13-race span en route to winning 13 races, the most ever in a single season.
Unfortunately, not much is known about his status as he continues to recover from a skiing incident he had in December of 2013. His son Mick is set to compete for Haas in 2021.
Which drivers do you see as being worthy of a spot in a top 25 of all-time compilation? Who is overrated/underrated in our list, and who else would you have included? Who would you not have included?