Michael Schumacher has overtaken Lewis Hamilton again in the “eternal” Formula 1 ranking of drivers with the best victory rate
Formula 1 record champion Michael Schumacher had his last race in 2012, but has now moved up one position in the ranking of Formula 1 drivers with the best victory rate. How is that possible? His immediate rival has fallen behind Schumacher due to fewer new victories in many more race appearances. And that immediate rival is the other seven-time world champion: Lewis Hamilton.
The bare numbers: Schumacher has a win rate of 29.74 percent for 91 Grand Prix victories in 306 Formula 1 races. Hamilton has a win rate of 29.58 percent in 355 Grands Prix after the 2024 season.
But that was different before the 2024 season, as a glance at the Formula 1 database reveals: Hamilton went into his last year with Mercedes with a win rate of 31.12 percent. The fact that he won at Silverstone and Spa-Francorchamps was not enough to stay ahead of Schumacher in the statistics.
However, another driver has overtaken both Hamilton and Schumacher in 2024: Max Verstappen. The Red Bull driver started the year with a win rate of 29.19 percent and has now increased his tally from 209 Grands Prix with nine victories this season to 30.14 percent. This puts Verstappen in sixth place on the all-time list of best performers – ahead of Schumacher, as the best current Formula 1 driver.
At the top of the list is a driver who never contested a full Formula One season: the American Lee Wallard. He won the Indianapolis 500 once in the 1950s, which at the time was officially part of the World Automobile Championship, without being a Formula One race. And a victory rate of two out of two Indy 500 participations for Wallard is 50 percent.
The best “real” Formula 1 driver in these special statistics is five-time world champion Juan Manuel Fangio from Argentina. He also competed in the 1950s and achieved 24 victories in 51 Grand Prix, the last in 1957 at the German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring-Nordschleife. His victory rate: 47.06 percent.
