Most dominant F1 driver ever

[cosworth151]

With all of the talk about Max being "the most dominant F1 driver ever," I did a little math.

Max has won 14 of 20 grands prix so far, or 70.0%
The best he can do, if he wins the 2 remaining races, is 72.7%

In 1954, Fangio won 7 of 9 grands prix, or 77.8%
If one deletes the Indy 500, it's 7 of 8 actual F1 races, for 87.5%

Max would have needed to win 20 race to better Fangio's 87.5%.

[Jericoke]

As always, we get into the trope of comparing 'eras' of racing.

Modern F1 cars are far more reliable than those of Fangio's day (I don't know about '54, but I know that he won races by switching cars at least once), however Max was robbed of a couple of wins due to reliability issues as well in '22.

While I'm loathe to admit that Max is a 'great driver', he's in a field against 13 world championships (down from 14 in '21), something that Fangio never had to deal with.  I've always believed an important part of the championship puzzle was being able to be in the best possible car, and Max has done that.  RBR and Max is obviously a great pairing, although Fangio seems to have won in both Maserati and Mercedes?

[lkjohnson1950]

Fangio won races and WDC's in Alfas, Maseratis, Ferraris and Mercedes. He won the "57 WDC in a Maserati 250F that was basically the same as the Maserati 250F he won with in '53.

[John S]

Have to agree Lonny, Fangio is the GOAT for me too - closely followed by one J. Clark.    Depends what we talk about in records, ablities and acheivements, often Jimmy comes out top, well for me anyways.

Having said that it's early days for Max, until his career is finished it's rather hard to quantify just how his stats might work out. He's certainly the best of this present era.

[cosworth151]

Fangio competed in 7 of the first 8 seasons of F1. He missed 1952 recovering from multiple injuries (including a broken neck) from a shunt at a non-points race at Monza. Of the 7, he won 5 WDC's. The other 2 years he was 2nd. Not bad considering he started F1 at the age of 39.

[lkjohnson1950]

Clark was always my GOAT, because I saw him race on TV. Didn't get to see Fangio until YouTube came about. Clark was pretty dominate in 1963: in 10 races he got 7 wins, 1 second and 1 third. In 1965 he won 6 out of 9. There were 10 races but he skipped Monaco to win the Indy 500. Would any modern driver do thar? The difference in how many races you can enter makes it impossible to compare Max's 14 to Jim's 7. Fangio and Clark were in very different cars. Fangio was always balancing power against grip; modulating the throttle to avoid spinning out. Clark's best years it was all about preserving momentum in an under powered car. Of course Clark and Fangio also raced a lot outside of F1 which Max doesn't do. Fangio won the Mille Miglia and Clark the British Saloon Car championship and the Indy 500.

[Dare]

Gilles Villeneuve wasn't a WC or didn't win a great number of
races but I don't think anyone drove past the limit like he did.
That's what more than likely lead to his early death

[lkjohnson1950]

When ground effects first became popular, a lot of people said you couldn't drift a G/E car. Then we went to Long Beach and there was Gilles in his Ferrari doing perfect 4-wheel drifts around the turn at the end of the back straight.