Greatest F1 Driver Ever - The Science...

[evenflow]

Over the years a thousand pubs have seen the conversation about "who is the greatest F1 driver ever?". I thought I'd have a play around with some statistical analysis to try and put some science behind the answer...

It's a difficult thing to do, as points awarded and number of races have changed over the years. I also haven't (yet) included DNFs due to car failure, non-fault crashes etc.

The source data is from Wikipedia, so I'm not verifying its accuracy. It's based on 866 drivers in years 1950-2022. In the period 1950-1961, I have assumed 5 points for 1st, 4 points for 2ns, 3 points for 3rd, 2 points for 4th, 1 point for fifth as they varied so widely.

However, I've pulled it all together and be interested in your thoughts! I thought I'd go for six measures:

1. Championships won per season entered
2. Wins per race entered
3. Pole positions per race entered
4. Podiums per race entered
5. Fastest laps per race entered
6. Percentage of points won versus all points available

Then take an average of the above to find the greatest... in the world.


Championships Won per Season Entered

Method: If a driver has entered 10 seasons, and won 2 championships, they would be awarded a score of 20%.

Of those who have won one or more championships, the results are:

Driver	Championships Won per Season Entered
Juan Manuel Fangio	62.5 %
Lewis Hamilton	43.8 %
Michael Schumacher	36.8 %
Alberto Ascari	33.3 %
Jackie Stewart	33.3 %
Alain Prost	30.8 %
Ayrton Senna	27.3 %
Max Verstappen	25 %
Sebastian Vettel	25 %
Jim Clark	22.2 %
Jack Brabham	18.8 %
Mika Häkkinen	18.2 %
Emerson Fittipaldi	18.2 %
Nino Farina	16.7 %
James Hunt	14.3 %
Jochen Rindt	14.3 %
Jody Scheckter	11.1 %
Graham Hill	11.1 %
Keke Rosberg	11.1 %
Fernando Alonso	10.5 %
Nico Rosberg	9.1 %
John Surtees	7.7 %
Nigel Mansell	6.7 %
Jenson Button	5.6 %

Wins per Race Entered

Method: If a driver has entered 10 races, and won 2, they would be awarded a score of 20%.

The top 25 are:

Driver	Wins per Race Entered
Juan Manuel Fangio	47.1 %
Alberto Ascari	40.6 %
Jim Clark	34.7 %
Lewis Hamilton	33.1 %
Michael Schumacher	29.7 %
Jackie Stewart	27.3 %
Alain Prost	25.6 %
Ayrton Senna	25.5 %
Stirling Moss	24.2 %
Max Verstappen	22 %
Damon Hill	19.1 %
Sebastian Vettel	17.7 %
Nigel Mansell	16.6 %
Tony Brooks	15.8 %
Nino Farina	15.2 %
Niki Lauda	14.6 %
Luigi Fagioli	14.3 %
Mika Häkkinen	12.4 %
Nelson Piquet	11.3 %
Nico Rosberg	11.2 %
Jack Brabham	11.1 %
James Hunt	10.9 %
Alan Jones	10.3 %
Jochen Rindt	10 %
Ludovico Scarfiotti	10 %

Pole Positions per Race Entered

Method: If a driver has entered 10 races, and got pole in 2, they would be awarded a score of 20%.

Quite a few interesting anomalies in here - lots of names I don't recognise. I guess the weather sometimes plays a part.

The top 25 are:

Driver	Poles per Race Entered
Juan Manuel Fangio	56.9 %
Jim Clark	45.8 %
Alberto Ascari	43.8 %
Ayrton Senna	40.4 %
Duke Nalon	33.3 %
Lewis Hamilton	33.1 %
Jerry Hoyt	25 %
Eddie Sachs	25 %
Stirling Moss	24.2 %
Michael Schumacher	22.2 %
Bill Vukovich	20 %
Dick Rathmann	20 %
Walt Faulkner	20 %
Pat O'Connor	20 %
Sebastian Vettel	19.1 %
Charles Leclerc	17.5 %
Damon Hill	17.4 %
Jackie Stewart	17.2 %
Nigel Mansell	17.1 %
Jochen Rindt	16.7 %
Jack McGrath	16.7 %
Mike Parkes	16.7 %
Pat Flaherty	16.7 %
Alain Prost	16.6 %
Mika Häkkinen	16.1 %

Podiums per Race Entered

Method: If a driver has entered 10 races, and got podiums in 2, they would be awarded a score of 20%.

More interesting anomalies. Don't know many people with a Dorino Serafini poster on their wall.

The top 25 are:

Driver	Podiums per race entered
Dorino Serafini	100 %
George Amick	100 %
Luigi Fagioli	85.7 %
Juan Manuel Fangio	68.6 %
Lewis Hamilton	61.4 %
Nino Farina	60.6 %
José Froilán González	57.7 %
Alain Prost	53.3 %
Alberto Ascari	53.1 %
Michael Schumacher	50.7 %
Lee Wallard	50 %
Bill Holland	50 %
Sam Hanks	50 %
Mauri Rose	50 %
Ayrton Senna	49.7 %
Max Verstappen	47.6 %
Jim Clark	44.4 %
Jackie Stewart	43.4 %
Sebastian Vettel	40.8 %
Mike Hawthorn	40 %
Bill Vukovich	40 %
Jim Rathmann	40 %
Damon Hill	36.5 %
Stirling Moss	36.4 %
Valtteri Bottas	33.3 %

Fastest Laps per Race Entered

Method: If a driver has entered 10 races and achieves fastest lap in 2, they would be awarded a score of 20%.

The top 25 are (wot no Senna - guess he was a qualifying specialist):

Driver	Fastest laps per race entered
Bill Vukovich	50 %
Juan Manuel Fangio	44.2 %
Jim Clark	38.4 %
Alberto Ascari	36.4 %
Lee Wallard	33.3 %
Stirling Moss	28.4 %
Michael Schumacher	25 %
José Froilán González	23.1 %
Alain Prost	20.3 %
Jim Rathmann	20 %
Lewis Hamilton	19.6 %
Jack McGrath	16.7 %
Nigel Mansell	15.7 %
Damon Hill	15.6 %
Mika Häkkinen	15.2 %
Jackie Stewart	15 %
Nino Farina	14.7 %
Niki Lauda	13.6 %
Kimi Räikkönen	13 %
Mike Hawthorn	12.8 %
Max Verstappen	12.8 %
Sebastian Vettel	12.7 %
Juan Pablo Montoya	12.6 %
Johnny Thomson	12.5 %
Gilles Villeneuve	11.8 %
Jacky Ickx	11.7 %

Percentage of Points Won versus All Points Available

Method: If a driver has entered 10 races with a maximum of 100 points available, and won 20 points, they would be awarded a score of 20%.

The top 25 are:

Driver	Percentage of Points Won versus All Points Available
Juan Manuel Fangio	82.9 %
Lewis Hamilton	62.7 %
Alberto Ascari	58.4 %
Nino Farina	53.1 %
Max Verstappen	49.7 %
Sebastian Vettel	44 %
Alain Prost	42.7 %
Luigi Fagioli	42.7 %
Mike Hawthorn	42.5 %
Nico Rosberg	38.7 %
Jackie Stewart	38.5 %
Michael Schumacher	37.7 %
Ayrton Senna	37.3 %
Stirling Moss	36.8 %
Jim Clark	36 %
Valtteri Bottas	35.5 %
Charles Leclerc	33.4 %
Mark Webber	31.3 %
Fernando Alonso	29.8 %
Juan Pablo Montoya	29.2 %
Kimi Räikkönen	28.5 %
Damon Hill	27.7 %
Tony Brooks	24.8 %
Nelson Piquet	24.4 %
Niki Lauda	24.1 %

Taking the average of all six scores, gives us the final top 25:

Driver	Average score
Juan Manuel Fangio	60.4 %
Alberto Ascari	44.3 %
Lewis Hamilton	42.3 %
Jim Clark	36.9 %
Michael Schumacher	33.7 %
Ayrton Senna	32 %
Alain Prost	31.5 %
Nino Farina	29.2 %
Jackie Stewart	29.1 %
Max Verstappen	28.3 %
Bill Vukovich	26.5 %
Sebastian Vettel	26.5 %
Stirling Moss	25 %
Lee Wallard	24.2 %
Luigi Fagioli	23.8 %
Damon Hill	21.5 %
Mike Hawthorn	20.9 %
José Froilán González	20.2 %
Niki Lauda	20.2 %
Mika Häkkinen	19.5 %
George Amick	18.5 %
Nico Rosberg	18.5 %
Nigel Mansell	18.3 %
Nelson Piquet	18.2 %

Interesting how some names are fabled, but others who might appear higher up barely get a mention.


453 drivers (52%) never won a championship nor a race, never got pole position, never got on the podium and scored no points. Tough old game.

My vote for worst driver ever is one of these 453 - a chap called from the USA called Pete Lovely, who raced in 11 seasons - the most of that unfortunate group.

Discuss!

[Muzzer79]

Greatness isn’t just measured by results.

I note that Gilles Villeneuve, as just one example, isn’t on any list.

It’s an impossible question to answer. The sport is simply night and day to even 30 years ago, let alone 70 years ago.

[maz8062]

No Fernando Alonso?

[thegreenhell]

Most of those anomalous names you don't recognise are Indy drivers, not F1 drivers. In the 1950s the World Championship for Drivers wasn't exclusively for F1 as it also included the Indy 500, and there was almost no crossover of drivers then.

If you're trying to analyse F1 specifically then you should filter them out, otherwise you get someone who podiumed in the Indy 500 a couple of times with a significant percentage as they may only have entered a handful of times in that period, and it seriously skews the results.

[Derek Smith]

Muzzer79 said:

Greatness isn’t just measured by results.

I note that Gilles Villeneuve, as just one example, isn’t on any list.

It’s an impossible question to answer. The sport is simply night and day to even 30 years ago, let alone 70 years ago.

Agreed.

One of the most naturally talented driver I saw in my 57 years of following F1 was Nelson Piquet. Yet, if there was a contest for the one who did not reach his full potential, he'd be there, probably fighting for top spot with Alonso.

Yet Piquet doesn't get out of the bottom 10% of any list. He was magic to watch, I saw him in a BT52 in his WDC year. Entrancing.

He was detestable in so many ways, but no one has bettered him in my eyes, except Clark.

Piquet great? Some would argue definitely. But others that he was a failure. Stats prove little.

But it's fun to read them. Thanks for posting.

[evenflow]

Completely agree with the comments about the results not telling the whole story.

Take Alonso - not high on any list, but known to be exciting to watch and for outdriving a car. The data doesn't tell the story of people fighting through the field, overtaking, being brave, having the mystical X factor... But I thought it would be interesting to see what the raw stats said.

[the-norseman]

Be interesting to do all that again, but not include Michael's Mercedes races.

[evenflow]

the-norseman said:

Be interesting to do all that again, but not include Michael's Mercedes races.

I can probably do that...

[HardtopManual]

Do you take requests? Let's see the top 20:

- Average qualifying lead over teammate relative to pole position time, i.e. 1:30 quali lap for lead driver, 1:30.5 quali lap for losing teammate, 1:29.0 pole position time = (30.5-30)/(30-29) = 0.5

- Average number of finishing positions above teammate where both (/all) cars finished.

- Average WDC position improvement over WCC position *2, i.e. 3rd in WDC when team was 4th in WDC = 4*2-3 = 5.

[MCBrowncoat]

I like this, bit of fun even though there are lots of things that can't be measured.

Just a quick note: Jim Clarks two in nine F1 championships entered - in fairness, he couldn't win the 9th, could he? Should probably make that out of 8

Starting to finishing position might be an interesting feature, you'd probably have to build it in %age terms. Starting 20th out of 20 and finishing 10th if 10 others crash out is still kind of last...

Edited by MCBrowncoat on Tuesday 14th March 23:43

[Eric Mc]

Pointless exercise becuase it ignores so many results that should be counted and includes results that should not.

First of all, it won't be an "F1" based set of results as for two years (1952/53) the World Drivers' Championship was not an F1 event

Secondly, it doesn't include all the F1 races that happened before 1950 (F1 had been running since 1946)

Thirdly, it will ignore all the non-championship F1 races that used to be held up until the early 1980s. These were often very important races and well attended by the F1 teams

Fourthly, as has been mentioned above, the Indy 500 events that were included as part of the World Drivers' Championship skew the stats in a weird way.

And, of course, it ignores all the grand prix races that were held from 1906 to 1950.

[Dynion Araf Uchaf]

MCBrowncoat said:

I like this, bit of fun even though there are lots of things that can't be measured.

Just a quick note: Jim Clarks two in nine F1 championships entered - in fairness, he couldn't win the 9th, could he? Should probably make that out of 8

Starting to finishing position might be an interesting feature, you'd probably have to build it in %age terms. Starting 20th out of 20 and finishing 10th if 10 others crash out is still kind of last...

Edited by MCBrowncoat on Tuesday 14th March 23:43

It might be argued that if you fail to survive your F1 career you were perhaps not as good as someone who did.

Also standards have improved massively in terms of driving ability. Putting Fangio as best is like saying Roger Bannister was the best middle distance runner. I think his best time is 12-13 secs off the current world record. Standards improved over time, so would expect a Fangio in all his pomp to be at about the level of Latifi today.

[Muzzer79]

Dynion Araf Uchaf said:

Putting Fangio as best is like saying Roger Bannister was the best middle distance runner. I think his best time is 12-13 secs off the current world record. Standards improved over time, so would expect a Fangio in all his pomp to be at about the level of Latifi today.

Oh please....

Standards may have improved but what definitely has is equipment and training. If Roger Bannister had the shoes and training equipment of a modern runner, he'd at least be a lot closer.

If we had a time machine; Fangio would also have exploited the equipment available to him, along with training methods. His talent was his talent. In my opinion, he would have been a great today, just like he was in the 50s.

But this is just part of the reason why this is an impossible question to answer - we don't have a time machine, so we don't know exactly how Fangio would do now, nor do we know how well Verstappen would do in a Mercedes W196 with drum brakes and a cork crash helmet.

[Speed Badger]

I know it's just a bit of fun, but the huge flaw in any of these is you can only compare eras. If you took Lewis Hamilton back in time and gave him an afternoon testing a 1960's F1 car alongside Jackie Stewart, he probably wouldn't be far off by the end of the day. If you took Jackie Stewart and jumped forward in time and gave him an afternoon testing the 2023 Mercedes F1 car he would be finished after an hour, if that.

Plus, these things always assume the best driver ends up in the best car. For all we know the best F1 driver ever was Pierluigi Martini.

Edited by Speed Badger on Thursday 16th March 11:49

[C5_Steve]

A lot of effort put in OP, well done. Makes for interesting reading and I commend your bravery in trying to provide some statistical analysis of what's obviously going to be one of the most argued topics

Perhaps "Most successful F1 driver ever" might be a better thread title, as regardless of how talented you think someone is you can't argue with results.....

[LukeBrown66]

Things like this remove human emotion.

Stats alone would tell you Hamilton Schumacher, but what stats do not tell you is that a lot of their wins came in massively dominant cars,, especially Lewis, but you have to make that call something many drivers have never done right eh Nando. Lewis was a dominant figure for a time, Michael basically had a tyre deal all of his own and the ability to test all day if he wanted to secure numerous money no object titles., but even then he was step above most of his rivals other than perhaps Mika and Montoya at time!!

Stats like this also discount how a driver drove. Piquet was tough off track but very gentlemanly on it, as was Alain, Senna, Schumacher and especially Verstappen are not at all like this, proving there are multiple ways to win. And depending on your viewpoint one is the right way,t he other is not.

[MCBrowncoat]

There's also no ground truth, so you can't test the accuracy of the model, and thus it's difficult to discern the most important features that make the greatest drivers.

There's definitely something in here about it's the car that drives these results, rather than the driver. And of lucking (probably not the right term) into a great car or period of time of a team producing a great car then staying with said team for a long time

Plus some bias, it's likely that headline stats are picked because you're looking for Fangio or Lewis etc to rise to the top to satisfy that your model is working well. If it pumped out say, Prost at the top, you probably wouldn't be so sure

But...it is just a bit of fun

[HustleRussell]

Eric Mc said:

Pointless exercise

Tough crowd!

[Voldemort]

I do not believe that Fangio (or indeed any driver) is 15 percentage points ahead of the next best driver.

[MustangGT]

Pointless exercise. You cannot compare eras where in one era the lead driver is permitted to take over the other drivers car should he fail to finish otherwise. How many races would that effect overall?

Also, some drivers never get a chance in a winning team, maybe they would be higher up the chart if they had been the nearer the best of the time. Good example of this is Nico Hulkenburg, his results outside F1 prove he is an excellent race driver, but, never achieved in F1, yet he still gets a seat.