How often the winner of the first Formula 1 race at the end of the year also becomes world champion and how the season opener winners of the last ten years have fared
Max Verstappen won the 2024 Formula 1 season opener in Bahrain. Statistically, this gives him a 46 percent chance of winning the world title this year. Because that corresponds to the percentage of drivers who have followed up their victory in the first race of the season with overall victory in the Formula 1 World Championship
In reverse, this means: In 54 percent of all cases, the winner of the season opener did not become world champion at the end of the year.
This happened for the first time in 1952: Ferrari driver Piero Taruffi won the first race in Bremgarten, Switzerland, but the title was won by his Ferrari team-mate Alberto Ascari, who had skipped the opening race.
In contrast to Ascari (world champion in 1952 and 1953), other champions managed to win the first race of the season in each of their title years. Juan Manuel Fangio’s record stands out here: he followed up his opening victories in 1951, 1954, 1955, 1956 and 1957 with the World Championship title in each case. All the more remarkable: Fangio achieved this on four different manufacturers!
Niki Lauda, a three-time Formula 1 World Champion, won his first Grand Prix in the 1976 season, but not in his World Championship years of 1975, 1977 and 1984.
Two of the three German champions also have interesting statistics: Michael Schumacher’s almost perfect record of opening victories and world championships for Benetton and Ferrari was spoiled in 2003 by David Coulthard’s opening victory in the McLaren. Sebastian Vettel, however, only won both the first race and the World Championship in 2011, but not in 2010, 2012 or 2013.
And that brings us to the question of what the statistics have looked like since the start of the turbo hybrid era in 2014.
It is striking: The most recent Formula 1 decade differs from the overall statistics. The ratio of season opener winners to world champions is therefore different for the 2014 to 2023 seasons than it was from 1950 to 2023.
