For the penultimate time, the top 25 ranking continues. Today, the focus is on sixth through fourth greatest Formula 1 drivers of all time.
It’s a world war of drivers today, as the group consists of a Brit, a French, and a German.
The British have put 163 Formula 1 drivers on the grid, the most of any nation. Italy is second with 98, with Andrea Kimi Antonelli set to become the 99th next season.
The fascinating aspect of that statistic is that Italian drivers have not fared well in F1. They’ve won three championships, but the most recent came from Alberto Ascari in 1953. Giancarlo Fischella is the last to win a race, nearly two decades ago, in 2006. Ascari still holds the record for most career wins for an Italian driver with 13, despite passing away 70 years ago.
It’s peculiar for a country so rooted in Grand Prix racing, from the dominant days of Alfa Romeo to the continued brilliance of Ferrari to the plucky underdog teams of Minardi and the Red Bull secondary team, to be so lacking in the driver department. Let’s see if Antonelli can turn the corner there during his career.
| 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) |
6. Jackie Stewart
Probably most well-known for his decision to retire right at the peak of his powers, Stewart’s tireless efforts to improve safety benefitted all who came after him.
But beyond his safety efforts, Stewart was still a three-time champion who more than held his own in his time.
Stewart’s 1969 campaign saw him lead a lap at each Grands Prix, a feat that few drivers from the 1950s achieved and only when ignoring Indianapolis 500 results. His 27 career victories were the most of all time when he retired, and nobody broke it for another 14 years.
Something pretty impressive I found when researching was just how solid Stewart’s rookie season was. He jumped straight into F1 by placing third in the championship with a win at Monza, finishing behind Jim Clark and teammate Graham Hill.
In 1968, Stewart won on a very wet Nurburgring by over four minutes. This was one of the best drives in F1 history for several reasons, not the least of which being just the courage to continue racing just a few months after Clark perished in an accident.
That year, he missed two Grand Prix due to a broken wrist sustained racing in F2, which contributed to him losing the championship. Stewart was still healing from this injury when he made his legendary drive at the Nurburgring.
Of course, another huge part of Stewart’s legacy was his mentorship of teammate Francois Cervert. Unlike many teammate relationships in F1, Stewart supported Cevert and helped lower the gap between the two in the back half of his career.
Sadly, the fruits of Stewart’s labor were dashed when Cervert was killed in a practice session for the season-ending United States Grand Prix in 1973. Stewart got out of the car that day as reigning world champion and has never raced again to this day.
5. Alain Prost
Prost has always been a super underrated driver for a number of reasons, not the least of which is how he is characterized in the 2010 Ayrton Senna documentary, Senna.
If you only watched that program, you’d get the idea that Prost was a wuss who only won the championship because he was in the fastest car.
In reality, Prost was a methodical and calculating driver who emphasized his strengths to cover his weaknesses, of which there were few.
Prost never scored a grand slam in his career of a pole, fastest lap, and leading all laps in a Grand Prix. He performed eight hat tricks throughout his career – a pole, win, and fastest lap. But he never cared about giving up the lead when it was advantageous to his winning the eventual race.
He beat every one of his teammates throughout his career, including Senna, as I outlined last week. That includes five former champions.
The first of the champions Prost faced was Niki Lauda. In the first season they were teammates, Lauda actually just barely edged Prost for the championship, 72 points to 71.5 points.
How did Lauda do it? He gave up on trying to outqualify the young Prost and instead focused entirely on his race setup. Prost showed more speed throughout the 1984 season, but it was the veteran who was able to squeak out a championship victory. It was something Prost took to heart and would apply for the rest of his career.
Prost lost the 1983 championship by just two points. He lost in 1984 by half a point despite leading the field in race wins in both seasons. In 1988, Prost would have won the championship were it not for the drop race system, but instead, he lost the championship by just three points.
This means that Prost was just 5.5 points from winning seven championships instead of the four he did win. That’s less than the points earned for finishing second in a race back then.
Like with Fernando Alonso, whom Prost played a role in bringing back to F1 back in 2021, it’s really hard to say that Prost did not play his cards about as well as he could have. If he had gotten a couple more friendly breaks, he might be in the top 3.
4. Michael Schumacher
Schumacher kicked off a revolution in his day. The seven-time champion became the first to break Juan Manuel Fangio’s record of championships with his sixth in 2003, which was also his fourth straight title.
Schumacher started the trend of F1 drivers doing everything possible from a physical and wellness point of view to win races. There are many times in pictures during the Schumacher era when drivers were tired and out of breath on the podium while Schumacher was in the middle without even breaking a sweat.
And that’s on top of a very brutal testing schedule. With no testing restrictions, the Ferrari team spent as much time as they could on testing, meaning Schumacher was in the car probably more than today’s drivers, even with a shorter schedule.
In the early 90’s, Germany had just reunified. The wall had come down, and East and West Germany became one. There wasn’t much that both sides had in common.
Then Schumacher came along and began to wow on the F1 circuit. Suddenly, the German people had something they could all believe in. It’s why Sebastian Vettel, while loved by the German people as well, did not have the same connection with them as Schumacher had. And why German interest in F1 has faded in spite of Vettel and Nico Hulkenberg being very capable representatives the past decade.
When he retired for the final time, Schumacher held the most countable records in F1, including the most wins, most poles, most podiums, most fastest laps, and most championships. All have since been tied or beaten by Lewis Hamilton, except for the fastest lap, as Schumacher still holds that record.
Something that sucks is that everybody was robbed of the 1994 championship battle between Schumacher and Senna. It would have told us so much about both drivers, and yet it was taken away early on in the season after Senna’s death.
Schumacher was not a perfect driver, to say the least. He was disqualified in 1997 because he had to be too aggressive and crossed the line to try and beat Jacques Villeneuve.
In 1994, Schumacher basically wrecked Damon Hill out of the final race ala Suzuka 1989 but maintained his championship win.
It should also be mentioned that Schumacher did have a very good record against his teammates, but that was primarily against clear number two drivers such as Eddie Irvine and Ruebens Barrichello. In his prime, Schumacher never really was paired with a teammate who could really go at it with him like Prost was.
Still, Schumacher was speed for an entire generation of F1 fans. If we ignore his 1997 disqualification, which he would have finished second in the point standings during, and his 1999 season, where he missed six races with a broken leg, he finished in the top 3 in points from the year I was born (1994) to when I was 12 years old (2006). Nobody, not even Hamilton, has been able to match anything quite like that.
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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