Most F1 race wins in history: Most successful drivers of all time
We round up the most successful drivers in F1 history, sorted by the most races won in the sport.
Winning a Grand Prix is the childhood dream for all F1 drivers and some have amassed an incredible number of trophies over the years.
Since the beginning of the sport officially in 1950, 113 drivers have taken the chequered flag to stand on the top step pf the podium, out of 776 overall participants.
Due to its endurance and difficulty, winning a race is seen as quite a feat, so to win multiple races over a number of years is something else.
Some legends of the sport don’t even make the top five, including Ayrton Senna , Nigel Mansell, and current star Fernando Alonso.
RadioTimes.com brings you the top five drivers who have tasted victory more than most.
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5. Alain Prost – 51 wins
Prost won four titles in his glittering career and his race wins spanned over 12 years.
His first win came on home soil, when he won the 1981 French Grand Prix at the Dijon circuit in a Renault.
Prost’s remarkable consistency saw him win at least a race a season every year from 1981 to 1990.
He had a great record of starting the season strongly, winning six opening round races throughout his career.
Perhaps his greatest win came in the 1986 Australian Grand Prix when a puncture looked like ending his title chances in the final race of a three-way battle between himself, Nigel Mansell and Nelson Piquet.
He subsequently drove the wheels off his McLaren to take the race win and earn back-to-back titles.
Prost took a sabbatical in 1992 and returned in 1993 for Williams, dominating the season before retirement, becoming the first driver to reach a half-century of wins.
4. Sebastian Vettel – 53 wins
Vettel became the youngest driver to win a race when crossing the line first in the Italian Grand Prix of 2008, driving the unfancied Toro Rosso car.
Wet conditions played into his hands nicely and he came home to win by a 12-second margin over Heikki Kovalainen’s McLaren.
It wasn’t long before he was promoted from Toro Rosso to Red Bull and 2010 was the year he came of age by winning his first title.
A memorable four-horse race for the title concluded in the final race of the season when Vettel was the unlikely winner, coming home to win the race and overhaul Fernando Alonso and Mark Webber.
The next three seasons saw Vettel dominate proceedings, particularly in 2013 as he won nine in a row to end the year.
He moved to Ferrari in 2015 and while he couldn’t inspire the Scuderia to a first title since 2007, he enjoyed 14 race wins in red.
3. Max Verstappen – 56 wins
Verstappen has been the figurehead of F1 in the last three years and has gone from strength to strength following his first tile in 2021.
His winning record has been aided by the fact he is the youngest driver to start a race, aged just 17 in 2005.
The Dutchman’s first win came in his maiden outing for Red Bull in the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix.
Since the start of the 2022 season, Red Bull’s unprecedented dominance of the sport means Verstappen has won 36 races – that figure alone would put him seventh in the all-time standings.
If he continues in such a manner and if Red Bull can’t be caught by the chasing pack, then it is not unfeasible to say he could be just the second driver to reach the 100 win milestone.
2. Michael Schumacher – 91 wins
Schumacher’s maiden win in F1 came in the 1992 Belgian Grand Prix driving for Benetton and two years later, he was a regular on the top step of the podium.
The German won 17 races across the 1994 and 1995 seasons as he won both world titles.
Four title-less year still yielded over a dozen wins before Schumacher dominated the sport for a five-year period between 2000 and 2004.
2004 was statistically his most successful year – he won 13 of 18 races, which is the highest percentage of Grand Prix wins in a season apart from Alberto Ascari’s 1952 campaign, where there were only eight races in total.
His final race win came in his 22nd different Grand Prix, reigning supreme in the Chinese Grand Prix.
1. Lewis Hamilton – 103 wins
Hamilton became the first Grand Prix centurion in 2021 and it will take something truly special to dethrone him.
The 2007 Canadian Grand Prix saw him win for the first time following five podium finishes to begin his F1 career. Hamilton won from pole position and subsequently won three more races that season.
The Brit then won five more races in 2008 en route to a first title, including his home race at Silverstone, finishing over a minute clear of Nick Heidfeld’s Williams in terrible rainy conditions.
Hamilton matched Schumacher on seven world titles with another virtuoso win in the 2020 Turkish Grand Prix, again in rainy conditions, mastering the slippery surface.
His 100th win came in the Russian Grand Prix of 2021 and he currently sits on 103.
2022 was his first winless year in 15 years of F1 racing but he is still active and hungry as ever, so don’t back against him adding more in 2023.
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Authors
Michael Potts is the Sport Editor for Radio Times, covering all of the biggest sporting events across the globe with previews, features, interviews and more. He has worked for Radio Times since 2019 and previously worked on the sport desk at Express.co.uk after starting his career writing features for What Culture. He achieved a first-class degree in Sports Journalism in 2014.
