Top 20 F1 drivers of all time ranked ahead of Las Vegas GP as Hamilton vs Schumacher GOAT debate settled
The F1 GOAT debate is among the fiercest in all sports - which is why we've attempted to name our SPORTbible top 20 drivers of all time before this weekend's Las Vegas Grand Prix.
Red Bull's Max Verstappen enters the weekend knowing he will secure the 2024 Drivers' Championship if he finishes ahead of Lando Norris.
Should Verstappen achieve what is now likely to be another world championship, he will join an exclusive club of just five drivers to win at least four titles.
Sebastian Vettel, Juan Manuel Fangio, Alain Prost, Lewis Hamilton and Michael Schumacher have all achieved the feat, with Fangio on five and Schumacher and Hamilton both on seven.
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Those names are invariably at the forefront of the discussion when it comes to the best ever F1 driver. Verstappen is surely in that mix now after a season in which, for large parts, the Red Bull has simply not been the quickest car.
Other eras have to be considered as well, with the iconic Prost vs Ayrton Senna rivalry, Fernando Alonso's consistency from the mid-2000s onwards and the raw speed of Gilles Villeneuve, Jim Clark and Kimi Raikkonen all putting forward their claims.
Here's our top 20 list:
20. Graham Hill
- Years active: 1958-1975
- Race wins: 14
- Championships: 2 (1962, 1968)
If you were compiling a list of the greatest race car drivers of all time, Graham Hill would be at the very top.
Not only was the Brit - the father of future world champion Damon - a two-time F1 title winner, he also won the 1968 Indy 500 and 1972 Le Mans 24 Hours. He is still the only driver ever to achieve the Triple Crown by winning all three.
What was most incredible about Hill is that he didn't grow up a talented driver. He only passed his driving test aged 24, and got into lower categories after seeing an advert.
He had to be patient for his F1 success, enduring four barren years that saw more retirements and car failures than finishes.
But in 1962, he finished every race, winning four Grands Prix and securing the title ahead of Jim Clark.
Hill won his second title in 1968 as, despite four retirements, he won three times and had three second places. A horror crash in 1969 derailed his career and he later set up his own team, but Hill died in a plane crash aged 46 in 1975.
19. Nigel Mansell
- Years active: 1980-1995
- Race wins: 31
- Championships: 1 (1992)
Nigel Mansell is the only driver in history to have held the F1 Drivers' Championship and IndyCar championship at the same time. It is a record that, in the modern day, probably will never be equalled.
The Brit was one of the sport's top stars in the 1980s, but never managed to win that elusive world title. He would have done in 1986 if not for a tyre blowout while in the race lead, which handed the title to team-mate Nelson Piquet.
But there could be no stopping him six years later, with Mansell winning nine races, finishing second on three occasions and being forced to retire from the rest.
After that, he decided enough was enough, but returned in 1994 after the death of Ayrton Senna. An emotional victory at Adelaide - the scene of his tyre blowout disaster - followed, before Mansell called it quits for good in 1995.
18. Alberto Ascari
- Years active: 1950-1955
- Race wins: 13
- Championships: 2 (1953, 1954)
Alberto Ascari was Ferrari's first true great F1 driver.
The Italian would only make 34 starts in F1, but made a lasting impression, winning 14 races and two world titles in 1952 and 1953.
He left the Scuderia to join Lancia in 1955, but a horror incident at Monaco which forced him to crash into the sea left him with a broken nose. For reasons that were never explained, Ascari decided to test a Ferrari ahead of his entry into a 1000km race in Monza four days later, despite not being scheduled to drive on that day. He had another huge crash which killed him aged 36.
17. John Surtees
- Years active: 1960-1972
- Race wins: 6
- Championships: 1 (1964)
John Surtees is the only driver ever to win a world championship in both a motorbike and an F1 car.
He was perhaps more successful in motorcycling, winning eight titles across two disciplines. But he also enjoyed his career in F1, winning the title in 1964 with Ferrari. He then finished second behind Jack Brabham in 1966.
16. Jack Brabham
- Years active: 1955-1970
- Race wins: 14
- Championships: 3 (1959, 1960, 1966)
Jack Brabham is the only driver in F1 history to win a world title while driving for his own team.
The Australian, who only decided to enter F1 aged 28, also won five of the eight races he entered in 1960 to win his second title for the Cooper team, having won his first a year earlier.
He was 40 at the time of his 1966 title with his Brabham team, and carried on competing for several years before retiring to manage the team. Brabham as a constructor won one more title - Dan Gurney achieved success in 1967 - before having mixed results prior to the team entering administrating and exiting F1 in 1992.
15. Mario Andretti
- Years active: 1968-1982
- Race wins: 12
- Championships: 1 (1978)
Like Graham Hill, Mario Andretti would be at the very top of a greatest all-time motorsport driver list.
The American won four IndyCar titles and the Indy 500 in 1969, and NASCAR's Daytona 500 in 1967.
Andretti had two spells in F1 between 1968 and 1982, winning his first and only Drivers' Championship in 1978 after a season-long battle with Lotus team-mate Ronnie Peterson, who was killed in a first-lap crash three races from the end of the season and was not far off being considered in this list.
Andretti won 12 races in F1 before leaving the sport in 1982. He continued racing in IndyCar for over a decade, winning his final race in 1993 at the age of 53.
14. Kimi Raikkonen
- Years active: 2001-2021
- Race wins: 21
- Championships: 1 (2007)
In an alternate universe, we might be talking about Kimi Raikkonen as a three-time world champion.
His 2005 McLaren was the quickest on the grid but seemed to fail him in new ways every week - not least when his tyre spectacularly failed with one lap to go as he was about to win at the Nurburgring.
The Finn would run Michael Schumacher close in 2003, although most of the second part of his F1 career couldn't see him match that raw pace. It got replaced by consistency instead.
13. Gilles Villeneuve
- Years active: 1977-1982
- Race wins: 6
- Championships: 0
From the outside looking in, you might wonder how a driver with six race wins in six seasons and zero championships could be close to this list.
Gilles Villeneuve had never had huge amounts of luck in F1. In the 1979 season, he finished four points behind championship winner and Ferrari team-mate Jody Scheckter, but followed team orders in finishing second behind him at the Italian Grand Prix. Had the result reversed, Villeneuve would have been champion.
In 1981, he failed to finish nine of the 15 races but won twice, including at Monaco by a staggering 40 seconds.
Then 1982 came along, and his initial on-track but later personal rivalry with Didier Pironi after an incident during a race.
What promised to be an all-time season never came to pass: Villeneuve was killed after a horror crash at Zolder and Pironi broke both his legs later in the season and never raced in F1 again.
12. Fernando Alonso
- Years active: 2001-
- Race wins: 32
- Championships: 2 (2005, 2006)
It's sometimes easy to look back at Fernando Alonso and think what might have been.
He was denied world championships in 2010 (by Renault's Vitaly Petrov) and in 2012 (by Sebastian Vettel's career-defining drive in Brazil). In 2007, had McLaren brought a better package to the final race, Alonso might have overhauled Kimi Raikkonen. Then again, Lewis Hamilton's gearbox may not have malfunctioned.
Alonso's character seemed to change after that infamous 2007 season, but his speed was still there. He hasn't had the machinery for the second half of his career - though the early pace of last season's Aston Martin showed how good he still is - but even only those two championship-winning seasons with Renault in 2005 and 2006 put him up there with the best.
11. Stirling Moss
- Years active: 1951-1961
- Race wins: 16
- Championships: 0
Dubbed by many as the greatest driver never to win a world championship, Stirling Moss was unlucky to be in the same era as Juan Manuel Fangio - and, at times, his own bad luck.
In 1958, the Brit finished one point behind eventual champion Mike Hawthorn, but successfully argued for Hawthorn to not be given a penalty that would have, as it turned out, won Moss the title.
His F1 career ended after a heavy crash at Goodwood that caused the left side of his body to be briefly paralysed. He attempted a comeback, but was vital tenths slower than his best and could never realise his dream of winning the title.
10. Sebastian Vettel
- Years active: 2007-2022
- Race wins: 53
- Championships: 4 (2010, 2011, 2012, 2013)
As soon as a 22-year-old Sebastian Vettel won the 2008 Italian Grand Prix in a Toro Rosso, it was almost a given that he would win the world title. By the end of 2010, he could call himself the youngest race winner and the youngest champion.
At his dominating best between 2010 and 2013, Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull were unstoppable. At Ferrari, there were times where he stood on the cusp of greatness again. But it didn't quite happen.
His race-ending crash while in the lead of the 2018 German Grand Prix - losing a championship lead to Lewis Hamilton that he would never regain - felt like a turning point.
There were mistakes in his final two seasons with Ferrari, combined with a less-than-ideal car, but his stint at Aston Martin showed the Vettel of old was still very much there. His retirement aged 35 two years ago means we may yet see him again.
9. Jackie Stewart
- Years active: 1965-1973
- Race wins: 27
- Championships: 3 (1969, 1971, 1973)
Jackie Stewart's F1 career was relatively short but remarkable at the same time.
The Scotsman only spent eight years in the sport, making 99 starts, but won 27 races and three world championships in that time.
But he decided to retire before his final 1973 season due to wanting to spend time with his young family. However, he quit the sport two races early after the death of team-mate Francois Cevert.
Stewart has been a leading advocate for safety in his post-racing career, including for better medical facilities and track improvements.
8. Niki Lauda
- Years active: 1971-1985
- Race wins: 25
- Championships: 3 (1975, 1977, 1984)
It can be easy to split Niki Lauda's career into two parts - his time as an up-and-coming driver and the 1975 world champion, and his remarkable recovery from the 1976 crash that almost killed him and left him with life-changing injuries.
Despite suffering horrific burns and being left in a coma, Lauda somehow came back to F1 six weeks later and almost won that year's championship, but finished second behind James Hunt after withdrawing from the very wet season-ending Japanese Grand Prix due to safety fears relating to his damaged tear ducts.
The Austrian then won his second title in 1977 with Ferrari, before retiring in 1979. He came back three years later with McLaren, and won his third title in 1984. After a difficult 1985 season that saw him fail to finish 11 times, he bowed out for a second and final time.
7. Juan Manuel Fangio
- Years active: 1950-1958
- Race wins: 24
- Championships: 5 (1951, 1952, 1955, 1956, 1957)
Juan Manuel Fangio was the first truly great Formula 1 driver, dominating the sport through its inaugural decade in the 1950s.
He still holds records for the highest percentage of races won and pole positions achieved, and was 46 when he won his last world title in 1957.
Fangio was also a successful sports car racer and attempted to become the only non-American driver in the field at the Indy 500 in 1958, but failed to qualify.
6. Alain Prost
- Years active: 1980-1993
- Race wins: 51
- Championships: 4 (1985, 1986, 1989, 1993)
If you could use one word to describe Alain Prost, it would be consistency. He had 199 starts in F1, winning 51 races and rarely being out of the title picture.
His heated rivalry with Ayrton Senna was iconic - their first-corner crash at Suzuka that decided the 1990 championship in Prost's favour is still replayed today - and the Frenchman had three titles by the time of his retirement in 1991.
But he returned to the sport for one more year with Williams in 1993, winning seven races and a fourth championship. After retiring again, Senna perhaps aptly took his seat.
5. Max Verstappen
- Years active: 2015-
- Race wins: 62
- Championships: 3 (2021, 2022, 2023
By the end of this weekend - or definitely, you imagine, by the end of next weekend - Max Verstappen will be a four-time champion. He will be the second-youngest driver, behind Vettel, to achieve that feat.
This season has certainly bumped the Dutchman up a few positions in the GOAT debate. The Red Bull hasn't been the quickest car for most of the season, yet Verstappen has consistently got the most out of it. His win in a rain-soaked Brazilian Grand Prix was arguably the greatest drive of his career.
The key for Verstappen will be what comes next. Does he quit Red Bull and go to Mercedes from 2026? Does he keep winning titles? Does he even quit the sport - as he has hinted at doing at times before? He's one of the greatest ever now regardless.
4. Ayrton Senna
- Years active: 1984-1994
- Race wins: 41
- Championships: 3 (1988, 1990, 1991)
When Verstappen won in Brazil, he drew immediate comparisons to Senna. Because wet weather was Senna's speciality.
Having started fourth in a soaked 1993 Grand Prix at Donington Park, Senna started fourth but ended lap one comfortably in the lead. He lapped everyone except for second-placed Damon Hill.
The Brazilian was a racing genius, capable of drives that you could barely get your head around. He won three titles with McLaren and would have surely added to that tally with Williams had he not been killed at Imola in a crash that changed F1 forever.
3. Jim Clark
- Years active: 1960-1968
- Race wins: 25
- Championships: 2 (1963, 1965)
It's perhaps fitting towards Jim Clark's legacy that, 56 years after his death from a crash at a non-championship race, the Scotsman still holds - or jointly holds - six F1 records.
The most remarkable of those is that, in his championship-winning seasons of 1963 and 1965, he took every point available. Back in those days, drivers could 'remove' their three worst performing results from the records. Once Clark had done that, he'd won every other race.
Dubbed the fastest man on the planet at the time, Clark won 25 Grands Prix out of just 45 finishes. In 1968, he won the first race of the season. In the next six years, four titles would be won by drivers from Lotus - the team he was representing at the time of his death. What could have been.
2. Michael Schumacher
- Years active: 1991-2012
- Race wins: 91
- Championships: 7 (1994, 1995, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004)
Michael Schumacher's stats, for a long time, put him well ahead of the rest. His 91 race wins and seven world championships would not be touched for another 14 years.
Schumacher and Ferrari were a winning machine throughout the 2000s. Even his team-mates had no chance against him. He just kept winning, in the dry and the wet. His consistency and raw pace over race distances have rarely been matched.
The German attempted a comeback in 2010 with Mercedes, and while he was past his best by then, there were glimpses of his best.
1. Lewis Hamilton
- Years active: 2007-
- Race wins: 105
- Championships: 7 (2008, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020)
If you look into the F1 record books, Lewis Hamilton holds most of the more significant ones. Race wins, pole positions, podium finishes - nobody has more than the record-equalling seven-time world champion.
His rookie season in 2007 set the tone - nine consecutive podium finishes to start the season. Had disaster not struck in China as he agonisingly slid into the pitlane gravel trap on bald intermediates, before the gearbox malfunction in Brazil, Hamilton would have been a rookie world champion.
It almost went wrong for the Brit in 2008, with rival Felipe Massa believing he was champion as he crossed the line to win the race. But Timo Glock was going slowly, and the rest was history.
Hamilton's decision to leave McLaren and join Mercedes was a surprising one, but the Brit went on the dominate the sport for many years. Now on 105 race wins, he'll join Ferrari for 2025 and look to cement his GOAT status further with an eighth world title.
Topics: Formula 1, Fernando Alonso, Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton, Michael Schumacher, Sebastian Vettel
Ryan Smart