It’s once again time to continue on with the top 25 ranking after taking a week off to discuss honorable mentions.
The top 10 Formula 1 drivers are where things get very tricky. Any ranking of these top 10 can be assiduously argued. Even from my perspective, it’s really just the top three that are set in stone; anybody else in there could move back and forth depending on the day.
It also needs to be noted that ranking the drivers is a bit of a problematic enterprise. All of these drivers are the very cream of the crop. Comparing eras is a bit of a fool’s game, even in a sport/series that lends itself as well as F1 does.
NASCAR, by comparison, can be a hard series to do a ranking like this because, for the first 25 years, the championship wasn’t that important. Plenty of drivers like Fred Lorenzen only raced the biggest races with the biggest purse. In F1, the goal has always been the championship, whether it is Guiseppe Farina or Max Verstappen.
| The Top 25 Formula 1 Drivers of All Time | by Michael Finley | Bonus (Honorable Mentions) |
| Part 1 (25 to 21) | Part 2 (20 to 16) | Part 3 (15 to 11) |
| Part 4 (10 to 7) | Part 5 (6 to 4) | Part 6 (3 to 1) |
10. Niki Lauda
Most know of Lauda now, either through his work as a non-executive chairman with Mercedes or the movie “Rush.” But even beyond that, Lauda was absolutely one of the greats.
Estranged from his family over his racing and in debt from multiple bank loans, Lauda had a much rougher upbringing compared to a lot of F1 drivers. Speed doesn’t know class, however, and his gamble paid off with a Ferrari contract after just two seasons in F1.
Lauda was the best driver in the world from 1975 to 1977. The guy was literally given his last rites in the hospital in 1976 and still came just half a point from winning the championship.
Then he returned a year later and won the championship with two races to go in the 17-race season. Despite only winning three of the first 15.
Had he not departed Ferrari after this, who knows what he could have done after that year? Still, unlike many who retired only to come back as he did in the 1980s with McLaren, he was able to actually walk away with a championship. And he did that while paired with Alain Prost, the only time Prost lost to a teammate besides you-know-who.
9. Fernando Alonso
It’s surprising that Alonso runs a driver management company that has been successful enough to land a driver (Gabriel Borteleto) into an F1 seat next season. Why? Because Alonso’s personal career decisions have done him no favors.
But given those lemons, Alonso has made perhaps the optimal pitcher of lemonade. The only teammates who have generally beaten Alonso are Lewis Hamilton and Esteban Ocon – and Ocon shouldn’t really count because Alonso had a very unreliable car in his last year against him.
It’s really hard to say that there is a particular strength or weakness to Alonso’s driving. He’s just good at everything. If I had to give him a notable accolade on something, it would be his mind.
Once the lights go out, Alonso is one of the smartest drivers on the grid, even to this day. He knows what his situation is and, even at age 43, has the reaction speed to know precisely how to get everything out of both the car and the rulebook to his advantage. Alonso is not an overly aggressive driver; he is on the line, but unlike many drivers, he follows it as it moves around.
Obviously, his weakness would be more out of the car. He’s been labeled a team cancer, and he probably deserves that after both stints with McLaren. But give him a fast car, and he’s going to be, well, Alonso.
8. Lewis Hamilton
Okay so two things before reading this entry.
The first is to breathe. Take a deep breath. In and out.
The second is to scroll back up and reread the introduction to this part.
There is no question that Hamilton is the most successful driver in F1 history. And what he means to the sport of auto racing, where he is essentially the Jackie Robinson of the discipline, is immeasurable.
However, success is only one variable in this ranking. In F1, the cars are so specialized that drivers alone cannot always make the difference. Those who believe Hamilton is the greatest must subscribe to this theory because of his struggles in the last few years at Mercedes and his latter years at McLaren.
When Hamilton has a fast car, he is absolutely a driver that should be in part six instead of part four. When he doesn’t, he’s also absolutely a tick or two off from the seven drivers ranked above him and a handful below him as well.
Hell, look right above this. At the 2022 Belgium Grand Prix, Alonso and Hamilton collided on lap one, with Hamilton briefly going airborne before retiring the car.
“This guy only knows how to drive and start in first!” Alonso yelled over the radio in response. And although Alonso would later walk this back a bit, that is a quote that has stuck with me because he was correct in spirit.
Alonso, in 2012, dragged a Ferrari that was clearly third on the speed charts to drivers championship contention. Hamilton has not been able to do something like this and likely never will unless Ferrari dramatically screws up the 2026 regulations.
Jenson Button and Nico Rosberg, both former champions but also much lower on this list, beat Hamilton in their time as teammates in at least one season. As did George Russell in both 2022 and 2024.
Spoiler alert, but look at some of the drivers still to come. Michael Schumacher. Jackie Stewart. Prost. Jim Clark. Verstappen. Maybe they lost to one teammate in one year, but not to multiple ones and so frequently.
Hamilton spent years in the fastest car and yet didn’t completely lord over the sport compared to Verstappen in 2022-2023, Sebastian Vettel in 2013, or even guys like Juan Manuel Fangio or Alberto Ascari throughout their careers.
Other drivers could win races in the Hamilton years of dominance, especially if you were in the other Mercedes. Depending on the year, Vettel in a Ferrari could keep him honest.
Again, it needs to be stressed that this is not intended as disrespect for Hamilton. Give him a fast car, and, well, he’s Hamilton. But unlike Alonso, he has shown over the past few years he cannot make lemonade out of lemons.
His stint at Ferrari, along with how Russell will fare against Andrea Kimi Antonelli in the next few years, will tell us a lot. If he can come into the Scuderia and knock off Charles Leclerc, who has been the prodigal son at Ferrari for the last five years, he might shoot up these rankings. If he can’t, and it wouldn’t be a surprise if he can’t, then being right below his hero isn’t that bad a spot for him.
7. Aryton Senna
I wrote a very long column on Senna on the 30th anniversary of his death, so I’m not going to go too deep here.
It should be stated, however, that Senna being this low is almost as much of a surprise as the last driver was. The reason is that it’s genuinely hard to put him above Prost.
Prost has earned a very unfair reputation the last several years, thanks largely to the 2010 Senna documentary, as just this guy who could win in a fast car. But if you seriously study those races in 1988-1990, besides just the Japanese Grand Prix, you’ll know you can’t put Senna over Prost.
As teammates, Prost had seven more podiums and won the points battle 150-163. Want to include drop races in that points battle? It becomes 154-186.
And it’s not like Senna had more unreliability or anything goofy, either. Senna only had two more mechanical retirements than Prost. Even turning the two-race difference into wins leaves Senna behind on total points and podiums.
Senna did win more poles in that time frame, a blistering 26-4 gap. But being the faster driver does not necessarily make one the better driver. And Prost, who, in addition to coming out ahead in the teammate battle, was just 12.5 points from eight championships in his career, was the better driver.
About the author
Michael has watched NASCAR for 20 years and regularly covered the sport from 2013-2021, and also formerly covered the SRX series from 2021-2023. He now covers the FIA Formula 1 World Championship, the NASCAR Xfinity Series, and road course events in the NASCAR Cup Series.
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