Ascari, Senna or Verstappen? Which Formula 1 era produced the most successful drivers?
09 December 2023 2 min read 7 images
Photo credit: Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes, Pirelli, Renault, Wheelsage
Verstappen's dominance in the 2023 World Drivers' Championship was remarkable: 19 wins out of 22 races. That's an 86% success rate.
This prompted us to explore the past to find out if and who might have exceeded this result.
To balance the data, we looked beyond a single season in our analysis, calculating the win rate across careers from the first to the last victory. And here come the surprises: Verstappen, with 164 races from his first to his last victory and 54 wins - not forgetting the Hamilton era - drops to a 34% win rate. This pales in comparison to the unfortunate 1950s driver Alberto Ascari, who, before his tragic accident at Monza, won 13 of 17 Grand Prix, a staggering 76%. Interestingly, Ascari's superstitions around numbers 13 and 17 seem almost prophetic in this context.
However, racing dynamics have evolved significantly since then, favouring the results of Fangio and Clark, who with 52% and 45% win rates, rank second and third, respectively.
Among recent drivers, Schumacher holds the record with nearly 40% of races won (91 out of 282), while Hamilton, with more wins - 103 - ranks slightly lower because these victories were achieved over a larger number of Grands Prix.
Hakkinen's seventh-place overall was surprising, with his 20 victories coming from just 66 Grands Prix, a record only surpassed by Verstappen, who ranks sixth, just behind Hamilton.
Close contenders in the win-to-race ratio are Prost and Senna, both known for their prolific number of victories.
Conversely, Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso rank lower in this unique ranking by Roarington and motorsport.com, due to their lengthy careers which produce far less favourable win rates.
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