The five drivers every racing fan still argues about

Ask a room of racing fans who the greatest driver of all time is and you get an argument, not an answer. Formula 1 dominates that conversation, but the five names that keep coming up earned their place in different ways: championships won, records that have stood for decades, and in one case, greatness across categories that had almost nothing in common with each other. Here is what each one actually did.

Michael Schumacher: seven titles, and a Ferrari revival

Michael Schumacher won two of his seven Formula 1 championships with Benetton, in 1994 and 1995, then joined Ferrari in 1996 and won five in a row from 2000 to 2004, turning a team that had not won a drivers' title since 1979 into the sport's dominant force. His wins came everywhere, including five at the Monaco Grand Prix, six at the Belgian Grand Prix (still the most any driver has won there) and five at the Italian Grand Prix.

His two most dominant seasons were 2002 and 2004. In 2002 he won a then-record 11 of 17 races, finished on the podium in every one of them, and clinched the title with six races still to run, a margin no driver has beaten since. In 2004 he broke his own wins record, taking 13 of 18 races. Sebastian Vettel matched that total in 2013, and Max Verstappen finally beat it in 2022 with 15 wins, then 19 in 2023. Schumacher's career total of 91 wins was the all-time record until Hamilton passed it in 2020.

Lewis Hamilton: matching Schumacher, then passing him

Lewis Hamilton passed Schumacher's career wins record in 2020 and matched his seven championships the same year, his fourteenth season in Formula 1, with titles won at McLaren and Mercedes. As of September 2026 he has 106 wins, the most of any driver, and nine of them came at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, the most any driver has won at a single Grand Prix.

The ninth of those Silverstone wins, in July 2024, ended a 945-day winless run, the longest of his career. It came in mixed wet and dry conditions, after he pitted for slick tires one lap before Lando Norris. He also has three Monaco wins, in 2008, 2016 and 2019, and eight at the Hungaroring. Monaco is one record he has not come close to: Ayrton Senna's, covered next.

Ayrton Senna: three titles, and a Monaco record nobody has matched

Ayrton Senna won three Formula 1 championships with McLaren, in 1988, 1990 and 1991, before he was killed in a crash at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix in Imola, Italy, at age 34. His first win came in the rain at the 1985 Portuguese Grand Prix, driving for Lotus, and he clinched his first title by winning the 1988 Japanese Grand Prix after stalling on the grid and dropping to 14th. His six wins at the Monaco Grand Prix, in 1987, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992 and 1993, are still the record more than three decades later. Lewis Hamilton, the closest active challenger, has three.

If you no longer go for a gap that exists, you are no longer a racing driver.

Ayrton Senna, to Jackie Stewart in 1990

One of his most famous wins came at his home race, the Brazilian Grand Prix, which he had failed to win in seven previous tries. In 1991 his gearbox lost gear after gear in the closing laps until only sixth was left, and he nursed the car through the slow corners, nearly stalling, to hold the lead to the finish. He was so exhausted he needed help getting out of the car, and only just found the strength to lift the winner's trophy.

Juan Manuel Fangio: five titles, and the best win rate in F1 history

Juan Manuel Fangio, born in Argentina in 1911, won five Formula 1 championships, in 1951, 1954, 1955, 1956 and 1957, with four different constructors: Alfa Romeo, Maserati, Mercedes-Benz and Ferrari. He did it in seven full seasons. He started no championship race in 1952: a crash in a non-championship race at Monza that June broke his neck and kept him out for the rest of the year. He retired after the 1958 French Grand Prix.

His career win rate, 24 victories from 52 championship races entered, works out to just over 46%, still the highest of any driver in Formula 1 history. He won his home Argentine Grand Prix four times and the Italian Grand Prix three times. His third German Grand Prix win, in 1957, is often cited as one of the greatest drives in racing history: a pit stop left him about 50 seconds behind the two leading Ferraris, and he broke the lap record again and again to catch and pass them. It was the last of his 24 wins. Fangio died in 1995, at 84.

Mario Andretti: the only driver to win all three

Mario Andretti, born in 1940, is the only driver ever to win the Indianapolis 500 (1969), the Daytona 500 (1967, driving a NASCAR entry for Holman-Moody) and a Formula 1 World Championship (1978, with Team Lotus).

That barely covers it. He also won the 12 Hours of Sebring three times, in 1967, 1970 and 1972, took four IndyCar titles (1965, 1966 and 1969 in USAC, 1984 in CART), and in 1993, at 53, became the first driver to win races in four different decades. It all started on dirt tracks, in a 1948 Hudson he raced at 19.

Still worth covering, whichever era you follow

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