Formula 1 Driver Number Of Wins

Lando Norris – for the first half of the season, Lando Norris was an absolute revelation, as he totally dominated highly-rated teammate Daniel Ricciardo, and was without doubt the most improved driver of the season. Despite a great fourth in Bahrain, the first real sign of just how strong he was this season was in Imola, where he initially qualified third before the lap time was deleted, and then recovered for a podium. He then drove brilliantly for fifth in Portugal on the medium tyres, as others on the same tyre tumbled down the order.

Monaco was his next podium, where he lapped Daniel Ricciardo on his way to third. In Spa, he lost a probable pole position and therefore a win when he crashed at Eau Rouge, and then he finished second in Monza after the overtake of the season at Curva Grande, and then backed up teammate Ricciardo's race win. Norris' form dropped in the latter part of the season and he lost fifth to Sainz in the stronger Ferrari at the final round.

However, he was still a lot quicker than Ricciardo and had bad luck in Qatar and Abu Dhabi with punctures. If McLaren can build a good car with the new regulations, Norris will surely win his first race in 2022. Chris Amon holds the record for most laps led and most pole positions without a win. The driver from New Zealand scored 11 podiums from his 96 starts in the 1960s and 1970s, but terrible luck and poor reliability prevented him from claiming an elusive victory. Amon led seven races during his career with Ferrari, March and Matra, but suffered a series of heart breaking retirements within sight of the chequered flag. Despite never standing on the top step of the podium at a championship race, Amon did score eight victories in non-championship F1 races and also won the Daytona 24 Hours and Le Mans 24 Hours.

His controversial victory at Le Mans in 1966, which was shared with countryman Bruce McLaren, was dramatised in the hit 2019 film, Ford vs Ferrari. He made a 46 years unbeaten record by winning the most World Championship of Drivers starting from 1951 and then 4 consecutive times from 1954 to 1957. With 24 wins, 29 highest pole positions, 35 podiums, 245 career points, and 23 fastest laps, he decorated his career with the greatest possible success. Here, you will find the Formula 1 records for most championships race wins, pole positions, race entries for both teams and individuals.

If you want to know more about the youngest drivers to win championships, races, points and podiums, read our article here. Charles Leclerc – despite being beaten by his teammate Sainz in the championship, Leclerc was still the stronger Ferrari driver in 2021. He also finished comfortably best of the rest in Catalunya and Austin, when the Ferrari was strong, and briefly led in Turkey before pitting and still claiming fourth. As well as this, he took two incredible pole positions for Ferrari in Monaco and Baku, but only didn't get to start there in Monaco after crashing in qualifying. He had more bad luck than Sainz, so was unlucky to finish behind him, but with Sainz new to the team, Leclerc was still expected to have more of an advantage than he did have.

I still think he is a potential future champion if Ferrari can get the new regulations right. Max Verstappen – the way he won the championship may have been farcical and unfair, but looking at the whole season, it is clear that he was the deserving champion. Without those three incidents of bad luck, he would have comfortably won the title before Abu Dhabi, and so he claims top in my driver rankings for the first time. His best drives were probably two dominant victories in Austria, a great stint on old tyres in Austin and another dominant win after a superb first-lap pass in Mexico. Verstappen also impressed in Monaco with another win, and France where he closed down title rival Hamilton and won.

He also deserves a mention for the dominant victory in Imola, where Hamilton hit the wall, for winning in front of his home crowd in Zandvoort. He was a little too aggressive multiple times this year, causing Hamilton to back off and give way to avoid a crash, and was blamed for the incident in Monza. But Verstappen was still the best driver in 2021, annihilating his strong teammate in Sergio Perez and winning the title despite awful luck earlier in the season.

The 24-year-old won his first championship following a season in which he won 10 races and finished on the podium eight times. Hamilton, on the other hand, won eight races in 2021 and finished on the podium nine times. As reported by Motorsport Week, it is to benotedthat drivers from Mercedes and Red Bull, the two teams embroiled in such a tense title competition, as well as Alfa Romeo, declined to vote. Using the same points scoring method as every F1 race, a total of 14 drivers submitted their ballots. While first place earned 25 points, second place received 18, and third place had 15. The output and the list of the fastest drivers of all time offers some great names indeed.

Of course, there are the obvious ones that rank highly—Ayrton Senna, Michael Schumacher, Lewis Hamilton, all of whom emerge as the top five fastest drivers. However, there are some names that many may not think of as top 20 drivers on first glance. Is that the Kovalainen that finished his career circling round at the back of the Grand Prix field in Caterham, I hear you ask? For those of us who watched Kovalainen throughout his F1 career, it comes as little surprise that he is so high up the list when we consider pure speed. The qualifying speaks volumes, with the median difference of just 0.1 seconds per lap.

Ask Kovalainen himself and he'll tell you that he didn't perform at the same level as Hamilton in the races for many reasons . But in qualifying, his statistics speak for themselves—the model has ranked him so highly because of his consistent qualifying performances throughout his career. I, for one, am extremely happy to see Kovalainen get the data-driven recognition that he deserves for that raw talent that was always on display during qualifying. However, while I believe Hamilton to be the rightful champion, the bad luck suffered by Verstappen means that overall Hamilton was lucky to even be in the hunt at the final round. The Silverstone incident also blotted his copybook, but he also deserves a mention for all the times he avoided similar incidents with Verstappen by backing off.

We came back into the sport in 2015 as a PU supplier, attracted by this very sophisticated hybrid PU technology. Compared to our rivals, our development time was relatively short and partly because of that, we struggled a lot in the beginning and we hit rock bottom in the early days. However, even while having to deal with logistical difficulties partly down to the Covid-19 pandemic, in this our last season we have been fighting with very strong rivals and we came out on top of the Formula 1 world.

This is due to all the hard work from all our engineers and mechanics, not just those at the race track. They never gave up even in the most difficult times and made numerous technological breakthroughs along the way. We were able to prove the validity and effectiveness of our technology and the abilities of our workforce. We should not forget McLaren, with whom this era started back in 2015 and all the drivers who have worked with us, always putting maximum effort into achieving the best possible results. Without all these elements working together and without the passion of each individual involved, we would not be where we are today. Last but not least, I'd like to thank all our fans who have always supported us through thick and thin, even when there was no light at the end of the tunnel and we had considered giving up.

It's not just me who took strength from the support of our fans. I myself went racing with the belief that Honda's power of dreams would one day come true and that we would enjoy our success with our fans. There is nothing better than sharing the highs of victory and the lows of defeat with you, as we made it to the top together.

Another German driver to hold several unenviable F1 records is Nico Hülkenberg, who has competed in the most races without scoring a podium and has also scored the most points without a win. Hülkenberg graduated to Formula 1 with Williams in 2010 after claiming the GP2 title the previous year at his first attempt. Despite recording a surprise pole position in Brazil, he was generally outclassed by his more experienced teammate Rubens Barichello and was not retained by Williams for 2011. Hülkenberg returned to the grid with Force India in 2012 and very nearly won the final race of the season at Interlagos. The German led for 30 laps in the tricky wet/dry conditions before clashing with Lewis Hamilton for the lead and being handed a drive-through penalty. Nick Heidfeld holds the record for most podium finishes in Formula 1 without a win.

The German driver stood on the podium 13 times from his 183 starts, but never on the top step. Heidfeld spent much of this career fighting for points in the midfield with Sauber, though he did enjoy several competitive seasons when the team was partnered with BMW in 2007 and 2008. The closest Heidfeld came to tasting victory was at the 2007 Canadian Grand Prix, where he finished four seconds behind race winner Lewis Hamilton. Much like Rubens Barichello, Valtteri Bottas has spent a large chunk of his F1 career driving the best car while his teammate – in this case, Lewis Hamilton – takes all the spoils. Bottas currently holds the record for the most career points without becoming World Champion. Now into his fifth season with Mercedes, Bottas has taken nine victories and twice finished runner up in the drivers' standings while Hamilton has won four consecutive championships.

He attended the last race of his career in the 2012 Brazilian Grand Prix and finished in 14th place. He won 91 races in total in his successful career which includes most of the major championships with the fastest laps and highest pole positions along with 72 Grand Prix victories. Verstappen finished the year with 10 wins on the season, 18 podium finishes, 10 pole positions, six fastest laps recorded and 652 laps led. Clark set 33 pole positions and won 25 of the 72 GP starts he made, and can claim numerous records to this day – in 1963, for example, he led 71 per cent of all laps raced that season. As well as his versatility, Clark was revered for his incredible silkiness behind the wheel, and his extraordinary mechanical sympathy. "Jim Clark was everything I aspired to be, as a racing driver and as a man," his great friend Sir Jackie Stewart said.

His first year at Ferrari has been even more impressive, taking seven pole positions and winning two races, including his team's first home victory since 2010. Not only has he been quick, he has unsettled and is likely to beat four-time Vettel this season, announcing himself as the next big hope of F1. Again, the small sample says means his statistics in our model are a little unrepresentative, like Hakkinen's, but his place in this list is fully deserved even after just 41 Grands Prix. George Russell – after three seasons with Williams in which he was only outqualified by a teammate twice, Russell moves to Mercedes for 2022, and will finally have his big chance to challenge for race wins and even a championship. If Sakhir 2020 is anything to go by, he should have a lot of success. In 2021, Russell had his best season for Williams, and qualifying continued to be his strong point.

In Spa, Russell put in one of the greatest qualifying laps in Formula 1 history to claim second on the grid in the wet, entirely on merit, and then took his first podium as the race never really happened. He scored again in Monza and in Russia after another incredible third on the grid, although this one was more lucky. At the end of the season, Russell went missing as he was surely more focussed on his move to Mercedes, and dropped from sixth to eighth in these rankings.

Next year, Russell can't afford to go missing, and there are question marks over his ability on the first lap. Pierre Gasly – since losing his drive at Red Bull after a torrid half-season, Gasly has become one of the best drivers on the grid. His best drives would probably be Mexico and Zandvoort, where he was best of the rest, and he also took a fine podium in Baku after a late battle with Leclerc.

He was also very strong in Hungary with fifth after dropping to the back at the start, and in Monaco where he came sixth and beat Hamilton. Gasly finished ninth in the championship, but I would argue he was one of the unluckiest drivers as he lost a lot of points in Monza and Bahrain through tiny mistakes, as well as in Styria. The Alpha Tauri was the fifth best car this season, but only finished sixth in the championship, yet this was not down to Gasly who beat both Alpines comfortably. He is in a good car for now, but I expect Alpha Tauri to drop down the pecking order next season with the new regulations, and Gasly will need to move away from the Red Bull stable to move forward in his career. If Ricciardo continues to disappoint, a place at McLaren could be a good fit. Italian driver Andrea de Cesaris holds the record for the most races without a win, as well as the most retirements of any driver .

But even when he wasn't crashing out, de Cesaris still failed to see the chequered flag in more than 70% of his F1 starts at a time when cars were notoriously unreliable. His worst period of unreliability came in a record 22-race streak from the end of 1986 to the early part of 1988, when he failed to finish any races. Despite retiring from every race during the 1987 season, de Cesaris did stand on the podium in Belgium - he was classified third despite running out of fuel on the last lap. Fernando Alonso – after Monaco, I said that Alonso's return to F1 was akin to that of Michael Schumacher. He was being outclassed by Ocon and just didn't look like the same driver he had been before his two years out. But from then on, he turned it around, and became the stronger Alpine driver.

He made up four places on the final restart in Baku, made some great overtakes in the Silverstone sprint, was strong in both races in Austria and in France. Having been delayed in the first lap chaos, Alonso found himself in the middle of the pack but recovered back to fourth later on as teammate Ocon led the race. Then Hamilton appeared behind him after dropping to the back, and looked set to catch Ocon and win the race.

But Alonso defended magnificently against Hamilton, holding him up for several laps and preventing him from having a go at Ocon. A great team victory for Alpine, who worked together again in Brazil as Alonso gave Ocon DRS to defend from Gasly, and in Qatar as Ocon defended against Perez to give Alonso his first podium since 2014. You would expect Alpine to make strides forward with the new regulations, and so Alonso will hopefully win a race in what is likely to be his final season in the sport.

Italian racer Luca Badoer holds the record for the most F1 starts and most racing laps completed without scoring a point. Badoer made most of his F1 starts with Italian backmarker teams Scuderia Italia, Minardi and Forti in the mid 1990s, but is probably best remembered for his less than stellar comeback with Ferrari in 2009. A long-time test driver for Ferrari, Badoer was drafted in to replace Felipe Massa after the Brazilian suffered head injuries in a freak crash at the Hungaroring. But it wasn't to be a positive return for Badoer, who had last competed in Formula 1 ten years earlier and was hopelessly off the pace. After qualifying and finishing dead last in both the European and Belgian Grands Prix, Badoer was replaced by Giancarlo Fisichella for the remainder of the season. Not all of the world's great sporting stars are as extrovert as they might appear – or as we might want them to be.

Jim Clark was one of the most unassuming men ever to sit in an F1 cockpit, but also arguably the most singularly gifted driver of all time. With two world titles and plenty of success in the mid-2000s, Alonso was always going to rank very highly. No driver has a bigger increase in weighted wins, moving from 32 wins in reality to 38.5 in the model.

Nobody has a better record against their team-mate either and over such a long period, too. The Spaniard beat the sister car in 16 of his 17 seasons – or 95 per cent of the time. A fine second year was enough for him to join McLaren but just as they started their slump.

His one season there has been followed by seven very successful years at Force India/Racing Point, where he has cemented his reputation as one of the best drivers outside of the top teams. From 2014 to 2018 he never finished outside the top 10 in the championship and scored a total of 400 points over five seasons with five podiums. To limit the effect a drivers' machinery has on the rating we "weighted" the points and race wins to come up with an adjusted total. This has been done by looking at how competitive the drivers' cars were during each season. For example, if a driver wins in a race in a car that came fourth in the championship, that win should be worth more than a win from a driver whose team dominated a season. It is the blended perfection of human and machine that create the winning formula.

It is this blend that makes F1 racing, or more pertinently, the driver talent, so difficult to understand. How many races or Championships would Michael Schumacher really have won without the power of Benetton and later, Ferrari, and the collective technical genius that were behind those teams? Could we really have seen Lewis Hamilton win six World Championships if his career had taken a different turn and he was confined to back-of-the-grid machinery? Maybe these aren't the best examples because they are two of the best drivers the world has ever seen. There are many examples, however, of drivers whose real talent has remained fairly well hidden throughout their career. Those that never got that "right place, right time" break into a winning car and, therefore, those that will be forever remembered as a midfield driver.

The latest win, his eighth of the 2020 season, means the British driver is now on track to secure a seventh F1 world championship and equal another of Schumacher's all-time records. Hamilton is currently on 256 points from 12 races - 77 points clear of Bottas, who is second in the 2020 drivers' standings. After finishing second overall in 1998, Schumacher's 1999 season was interrupted by a broken leg incurred in a crash at the British Grand Prix. From then on there was no stopping 'Schumi' - who in 2000 became Ferrari's first champion in 21 years, then went on to win the driving title for the next four years in succession. In 2002 he won 11 times and finished on the podium in all 17 races. In 2003 he broke Fangio's record by winning his sixth driving title.

In 2004 he won 13 of the 18 races to win his seventh championship by a by a massive margin. Over the next four seasons with Benetton he won a further 18 races and two world championships. His first, in 1994, was somewhat tainted in that Benetton was suspected of technical irregularities and in their championship showdown race in Adelaide Schumacher collided with the car of his closest challenger, the Williams of Damon Hill. But Germany's first world champion was unquestionably worthy of the 1995 driving title, following which he moved to Ferrari, then a team in disarray and without a champion since Jody Scheckter in 1979. As punishment for his misdemeanour Schumacher's points and his second place in the championship were stricken from the record books he would thereafter begin to rewrite. Nine wins and 13 pole positions in five seasons followed but Webber could never quite match the sister car of Sebastian Vettel.