100 F1 race winners: statistics

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Michael Schumacher holds the record for the most F1 wins with 91

To finish our look at the 100 different driver to have won a Grand Prix here’s a statistical breakdown of the different winners so far.

Which country has won the most Grands Prix? What’s been the longest stretch without the same driver winning twice? Who won his home race the most? Find out below.

Victories by nationality

On 198 occasions victory has been claimed by a British driver. Germany is the only other nation to have passed the 100 mark, largely down to the efforts of Michael Schumacher.

A total of 20 different nations have scored Grand Prix victories, the most recent being Poland thanks to Robert Kubica’s win at Montreal this year. Here’s a full breakdown:

1. Great Britain 198
2. Germany 103
3. Brazil 96
4. France 79
5. Italy 43
6. Finland 43
7. Austria 41
8. Argentina 38
9. United States 33
10. Australia 26
11. Spain 19
12. Canada 17
13. New Zealand 12
14. Sweden 12
15. Belgium 11
16. South Africa 10
17. Switzerland 7
18. Colombia 7
19. Mexico 2
20. Poland 1

The record for the most Grand Prix wins

Alberto Ascari was the first driver to score ten Grand Prix wins. The 1953 Swiss Grand Prix was his 13th and final win, and Juan Manuel Fangio surpassed his record at the 1955 Argentine Grand Prix.

Fangio’s famous win at the Nurburgring in 1957 marked his 24th and final F1 win. A decade passed before that mark was equalled, by Jim Clark. The 1968 South African Grand Prix was Clark’s 25th and last victory in the world championship before his untimely death.

Jackie Stewart equalled Clark’s record in 1973 and retired at the end of the year having won 27 times. It was 14 years before Alain Prost matched that, at Spa-Francorchamps.

Prost’s final win, his 51st, came at the 1993 German Grand Prix. (His disqualification from the 1985 San Marino Grand Prix due to being underweight rankled with him. Howevert, he inherited victory in the 1982 Brazilian Grand Prix due to the disqualification of the two people who finished in front of him).

At that time Michael Schumacher had just one Grand Prix win to his name but at the 2001 Hungarian Grand Prix he matched Prost’s record. Another 40 wins by the 2006 Chinese Grand Prix pushed the highest victory tally up to 91, and it’s likely that whoever breaks it will be the first driver to pass 100 wins.

Oldest living F1 winners

The five oldest living F1 race winners are:

1. Jose-Froilan Gonzalez, 85 years, 10 months and 10 days
2. Jack Brabham, 82 years, 4 months and 13 days
3. Phil Hill, 81 years 3 months and 26 days
4. Jim Rathmann, 80 years and 30 days
5. Stirling Moss, 78 years 10 months and 29 days

Lowest starting position a Grand Prix has been won from

The five lowest starting positions a Grand Prix has been won from are:

22nd – once
19th – once
18th – once
17th – twice
16th – twice

A Grand Prix has never been won from 21st, 20th or 15th on the grid.

Most wins in home Grand Prix

The five drivers who won their home Grand Prix the most were:

Alain Prost, France, 6 times
Jim Clark, Britain, 5 times
Juan Manuel Fangio, Argentina. 4 times
Nigel Mansell, Britain, 4 times
Michael Schumacher, Germany, 4 times

Other stats

Ayrton Senna won the most consecutive races at the same venue, with five wins in the Monaco Grand Prix from 1989-1993.

The largest number of different winners in consecutive races ran for nine races from the 1961 to 1962 French Grands Prix. The winners were Giancarlo Baghetti, Wolfgang von Trips, Stirling Moss, Phil Hill, Innes Ireland, Graham Hill, Bruce McLaren, Jim Clark and Dan Gurney. It was Clark who broke the sequence.

Alberto Ascari won the most consecutive races started, nine between the 1952 and 1953 Belgian Grand Prix (he did not start the Indianapolis round).

The youngest Grand Prix winner was Fernando Alonso in the 2003 Hungarian Grand Prix (22 years and 26 days) and the oldest was Luigi Fagioli in the 1951 French Grand Prix, (53 years and 22 days).

There have been three shared wins in F1 history: Luigi Fagioli and Juan Manuel Fangio (France, 1951), Luigi Musso and Juan Manuel Fangio (Argentina 1956) and Tony Brooks and Stirling Moss (Britain 1957). Today, drivers may not share cars.

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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28 comments on “100 F1 race winners: statistics”

  1. Tons of Thanks for this amazing 100 F1 Race winners. You have done a superb job!

    In fact may I suggest to change your name from F1Fanatic to F1Fantastic!

    Thanks again and waiting for more!

  2. Keith, where’s the graph? :)

  3. One more thing: for ‘Lowest starting position a Grand prix has been won from’, can you recap who did them? I wasn’t really able to read the bios of all 100 winners. Would appreciate it if you can do it, Keith. :)

  4. Paul Sainsbury
    15th August 2008, 8:25

    @ Journeyer.

    I think the victory from 22nd was John Watson at Long Beach………1982?

    I am pretty sure the one from 16th was MS at Spa in 95. Hopefully Keith can fill in the others.

  5. Paul,

    Yep, that was what I thought. Kimi’s 2005 win in Japan should also be somewhere in that list. John Watson’s 1981 Long Beach win might be there too – but I’m not sure on that.

  6. Fascinating that in all Grands Prix we’ve had since the World Championship was conceived, noone has ever won a race from 15th.

  7. Journeyer – I broke the graph :-( So I’ve added a list…

    And here’s those wins from the rear:

    22nd – John Watson, McLaren, Long Beach, 1983
    19th – Bill Vukovich, Kurtis Kraft, Indianapolis, 1954*
    18th – Rubens Barrichello, Ferrari, Hockenheimring, 2000
    17th – John Watson, McLaren, Detroit, 1982 and Kimi Raikkonen, McLaren, Suzuka, 2005
    16th – Jackie Stewart, Tyrrell, South Africa, 1973 and Michael Schumacher, Benetton, Spa-Francorchamps, 1995

    *Indianapolis 500

  8. Hi Keith

    Thank you so much for this epic piece of work and all that you do on the site – I’m addicted!

    GR

  9. Oh yeah! Rubens’ 1st win! Forgot about that! Hehe.

  10. Terry Fabulous
    15th August 2008, 13:05

    Awesome Keith, i have very much enjoyed this series of articles.

  11. Terry Fabulous
    15th August 2008, 13:06

    Hey man, should the consecutive winners sentance be 1951 to 1962?

  12. Looks like Terry’s right, Keith. (Paragraph 2, under Other Stats)

  13. No it’s definitely 1961-1962:

    1961 France – Baghetti
    1961 Britain – von Trips
    1961 Germany – Moss
    1961 Italy – P Hill
    1961 USA – Ireland
    1962 Netherlands – G Hill
    1962 Monaco – McLaren
    1962 Belgium – Clark
    1962 France – Gurney

  14. So the Shu’s have 97 of the 103 wins for the Germans. Impressive.

  15. What I’m curious about, is which decade produced the most (or least) winners. I’d guess the 60s or 70s would have most, since there were more competitive teams during those eras and more GPs to be won than in the 50s, while the 90s might have produced the least winners, because the teams that won did so more consistently throughout the period, even though there were more races per season.

  16. I’d think so, Lustigson. I’m guessing the 60s, if not that, then the 50s. The 80s had the least unique winners, I think.

  17. Great article,great site Keith. I visit F1 Fanatic on a daily basis.

  18. Really glad you’ve enjoyed the series guys – got a bit lucky having the 100th winner just before the three week break!

  19. yeah, I love these articles Keith, ever since I’ve started reading your articles it seems I cant stop!

  20. Congrats Keith, really nice this one.
    I wonder if a driver won starting from the pit position. Has it ever happened?

  21. Very well laid out Keith, some surprises in there for me. I didn’t know that Prost had won his home race so often. I am fascinated by some of the older statistics, keep up the good work mate, this is my favourite motorsports website and it keeps getting better and better.

  22. -Prost have same “irritating” records (for we brazilians).:-)
    6 wins in his home. And 6 wins in Brazil.

    -impressive that John Watson appears 2 times in the “wins from hear”.
    In the last race 1982 he needed to win fo the champ title and almost did it finishing second (ninth at the grid).

    -Prost have same “irritating” records (for we brazilians).:-)
    6 wins in his home. And 6 wins in Brazil.

  23. Somewhat to my amazement, the 1950s produced the most different winners from any other decade in Formula One, with the 1970s a good second. The 1990 only produced 10 new winners, while the 2000s up until 2007 already produced the same number.

    Here’s a list:

    1. 1950-1959 : 24 (including 9 Indy 500 winners)
    2. 1970-1979 : 22
    3. 1960-1969 : 18 (including 1 Indy 500 winner)
    4. 1980-1989 : 14
    5. 2000-2008 : 12
    6. 1990-1999 : 10

  24. Thanks for compiling those Lustigson. I think part of the reason the 1950s are so far up the list is because there was no world championship in the 1940s. But all the same given how many more races there were in the 1970s it’s quite surprising to see the ’50s ahead. Of course, if you factor out the Indy 500s it all starts to make a lot more sense.

    Fergus – I’m pretty sure no-one’s won from the pits before!

  25. True, Keith. In fact, an Indy-corrected list looks like this:

    1. 1970-1979 : 22
    2. 1960-1969 : 17 (plus 1 Indy 500 winner)
    3. 1950-1959 : 15 (plus 9 Indy 500 winners)
    4. 1980-1989 : 14
    5. 2000-2008 : 12
    6. 1990-1999 : 10

  26. Sadly, it looks like the list of oldest living winners is now innacurate with the passing of Phill Hill :(
    RIP Phil Hill

  27. So is the first night race also going to be the first GP with 12 former race winners on the starting grid?

  28. Great article! Sorry to nit pick but I thought Fernanado Alonso has won 21 races but there are only 19 recorded for Spain.

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