Max Verstappen 51st grand prix win last weekend in Mexico put him level with Alain Prost and leaves him only behind three drivers in Formula 1’s all-time winner’s list.
Both drivers scored their first wins during their second seasons in F1; Verstappen in his 24th start, Prost his 19th. Prost, who won four world championships by the time he retired 30 years ago, picked up wins at a quicker rate than Verstappen did. He took at least one win per season every year from his breakthrough triumph in Dijon until 1990, becoming F1’s most successful driver ever in terms of wins.However Verstappen’s astonishing rate of success since the beginning of last season has seen him score 31 wins – more than half Prost’s tally – in that time. He scored his 51st win on Sunday at his 182nd attempt, 11 fewer races than Prost had competed in when he scored his final grand prix victory at the Hockenheimring in 1993.
As F1 calendars were shorter in Prost’s day, he took almost four seasons to even reach 51 starts in F1, and his spread of wins took place over 12 seasons of which the longest had 16 races.
Their other tallies are similar: Prost had 33 poles when he got to 51 wins, while Verstappen has 30. In fastest laps Prost leads the way with 38 to 29 in that time period and when it comes to podiums Prost has 102 to Verstappen’s equally impressive 95.
It was Red Bull’s 110th victory in F1, and their fifth in Mexico, all which Verstappen scored. He has won five of the last six grand prix at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, matching his record at the Red Bull Ring as his most successful track.
Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton finished second, the 56th time he has done that in his F1 career, and also took his 65th fastest lap.
Charles Leclerc finished third from pole, and his 28th podium appearance put him level with Clay Regazzoni while his 22nd pole means he matched his on-track rival Fernando Alonso. But Leclerc’s race result means he continues to worsen his conversion rate from pole, with now only 18.2% of them having been converted into victories and none of the last 11. In comparison, Alonso’s conversion rate is 63.6% and Verstappen’s is 83.3%.
Ricciardo became the 21st different driver to score a point this year, equalling the number seen last year, which was the most since 2005, when 24 different drivers scored points.
It was the second weekend in a row where AlphaTauri achieved a season-best points haul, as at Circuit of the Americas where Yuki Tsunoda scored five points for eighth place with fastest lap, and they jumped from last in the constructors’ standings to eighth.
Oscar Piastri, who took Ricciardo’s McLaren drive for 2023, finished eighth and that marked the best result for a rookie in Mexico – which has now held 23 grands prix – since Alex Albon was fifth in 2019.
Neither Aston Martin finished in the points in Mexico, which is only the second time this season that has happened. Fernando Alonso has now gone two races in a row without scoring points for the first time since last season, and has failed to score in three of the last five rounds.
Have you spotted any other interesting stats and facts from the Mexican Grand Prix? Share them in the comments.
2023 Mexican Grand Prix
- ‘I’m so s*** in qualifying’: Norris berates himself despite pole-winning lap
- Ferrari reaping the benefits of having F1’s most closely-matched team mates
- Norris had “no chance” to beat Verstappen in Mexico even without Q1 exit
- Transcript: How Ricciardo’s race went awry soon after he was told to “bring it home”
- Mercedes see “very encouraging signs” from Austin floor update
KaIIe (@kaiie)
1st November 2023, 7:50
First Mexican GP (or Mexico City GP) to be red-flagged since the 1987 race.
OOliver
1st November 2023, 7:52
After Abu Dhabi 21 I said Max could have exceeded Hamilton’s win tally in 5 years because Redbull looked like they were capable of winning all the races in a season. It is phenominal the car and driver combination.
Billy Rae Flop
1st November 2023, 22:35
For next season I hope redbull is either just as dominant or more (forcing some change) or that it’s very even and Ferrari Mercedes challenging for title. Probably will not see title go to the last race but as long as it’s not halfway between those two scenarios it’ll be good
Mr Ed
1st November 2023, 8:07
Not to take anything away from Max, but this really does show what a monster Prost was. Those 51 wins come alongside 52 DNFs vs ‘only’ 26 for Max. Prost was racing with WDCs and future WDCs as team mates and most of the non WDCs were probably a cut above Max’s.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
1st November 2023, 8:35
Indeed, it’s impressive, what also impresses me is that I’d have thought prost would’ve had many more gps than verstappen atm, the fact verstappen at this age already has almost as many races as prost, who was around 39 when he retired is really insane.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
1st November 2023, 8:37
And this is also a reminder to us that verstappen’s career hasn’t been all plain sailing with a dominant car: 2015 he had a midfield car, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 he had one of the best cars, capable to win on merit on occasion, often able to win whenever something happened to title contenders, but never a title contending car in those years, then 2021 he finally had a title contender and an incredible fight, 2022 was only a battle early on, till ferrari dropped the ball and 2023 (the car ofc, not perez) was as dominant as the best mercedes of the dominant era.
Jimmy Cliff
1st November 2023, 9:34
Fairly sure Max gladly would have fought Lewis from 2015-2020 at Mercedes and likely would have broken Prost earlier. Mercedes won 86 races from 2015-2020 surely Max would have picked up 30 wins.
Sadly unlike Prost Max didn’t get a championship contender car till 2021 so 6 seasons past in midfield or 2nd/3rd behind dominant Mercedes. Stil in the almost 5 seasons with Red Bull behind a very dominant Mercedes Max managed to score on average 2 wins per season.
Once he did get a season long competitive car he started slowly get more and more dominant.
You need a competitive car to win races – you need a dominant car to win lots of races.
The longer you career and the more seasons in a competitive/dominant car largely impacts your win tally.
Max got quicker to 51 wins than Lewis did, Like Max Lewis also needed a very dominant car to reach 51.
After 7 seasons (including 3 championship contending seasons) Lewis had 22 wins with 129 race starts.
After 6 seasons (non championship contending) Max had 10 wins with 119 race starts
In the next 56 starts Lewis scored 29 wins achieving his 51st win in Mexico after in total 185 race starts
In the next 63 starts Max scored 41 wins achieving his 51st win in Mexico after in total 182 race starts
Jockey Ewing
1st November 2023, 12:15
Obviously by the time Prost was an active competitor cars were much less reliable, and much less safe and much less easy to drive. Apart from safety, F1 should pull all of these sliders into this direction. Lower reliability can bring down costs if all of the other the variables are fixed. Less downforce is easier on the tyres, they can last longer, and les downforce is good for the spectacle. Also older drivers would think twice to stay if cars wold be more challenging. This would solve the problem the young graduates from the nowadays not really feeding feeder series facing (I wise manager, be yer patient until 30 if yer wanna a top drive son, yer have talent, we favor household name). This would also send some pay driver lookalikes home earlier. But of course the rule making around F1 is quite influenced by the involved manufacturers, so they play the financially safe game instead of anything else as they are quite established by now. A good proof for it, that instead of considering any technically more sophisticated solutions for the porpoising, the went for the lowest hanging quick fix: raising the cars, instead of going even further ahead with Ross Brawn’s concept. Going further with the concept, maybe would brought back the amazing spectacle of the older days sooner. Allegedly they want to still reform F1, but with a slower approach, as I have read in maybe a Domenicali interview, but I guess very gradually, by very small incremental changes coming per season. In the end if they do very well, they can get to similar levels of spactacle, where artifical show elements are not really necessary. Also by the approach to machinery, and to financles, like cost cap or not, by management style F1 would incluence other tiers of motorsports, and maybe would make those better as well. For example feeder series could be less pay driver infested. It was not good to see that in some seasons of F2 maybe half of the field had very little to with do once reaching F1 one day, but still staying for seasons, or something even worse level of performances, especially considering the costs.
Also Prost achieved what he achieved when rules were not cemented for 4 to in the foder of magnitude close to 10 years, so the pecking order changed much more frequently at this era and typically before that also.
roadrunner (@roadrunner)
1st November 2023, 14:35
Hmm, not convinced by that. It’s impossible to go back in time in a sport that thrives in technologie, innovativion and progress.
Cars will never be as unreliable as in the 80s and 90s. And never be as difficult to drive. The tools and the knowledge the teams have, have just advanced to much. Also drivers are way better prepared than earlier and their diet and training mean they are able to compete longer at a competitive level (as are athletes in all other sports).
I think it’s more a question of to restrictive regulation and wrong/bad tires that is limiting the quality of racinge. We have the cost cap know. That’s great. So let’s get ride of most of prescriptions of how to design a car and an engine.
Impose crashtests, a minimum weight and some other basics and let’s see with what the teams come up. And of course allow Pirelli to build as good a tire as they can or even better allow a second tire manufacturer.
Jockey Ewing
1st November 2023, 17:08
I do not think spectacle and thrill, driving challenge, and remaining the driving force of innovations is not achievable at the same time either. Maybe doing something sane costs-wise would be better. The costs cap could be all inclusive, on real value lower, but I mean let’s include the development costs of the power units and fuels as well for example, let’s follow the inflation otoh. And let’s spend the remaining money on education and charity.
With removing the reliability requirements, and punishments the cars could last 1 races only again. With simple aero they could be much less stable again. With much simpler aero they could be much less consistent, so DRS wouldnot be necessary, just the fact that practically no one would do perfect laps would create overtaking opportunities.
I think too much consistency castrates most of the sports. It should be more about perception and agility. I understand otoh why it is not possible to go back in time at an eyeblink: the involved manufacturers do not want that, and would not parrove that, and that would risk bankrupting F1.
I think going ahead with Ross Brawn’s concept so with even more simple aero, maybe with even more downforce generated by the floor, and the porpoising eliminated by active suspension suspension, maybe even AI driven one would be nicer. I do not think the new rules failed. Just because one team is/was far ahead, the others were closer each other. The worst cars were quite close to the quite dense field, and there was a convergernce. Saying it was bad because the fastest team was quite ahead, is a selective and discriminative approach to statistics and analysis.
And the best point is- one thing what you have mentioned, and would have liked, I quote it:
If there is a sane cost cap, and if there are cars what are a thrill to watch and drive due to quite much less downforce, and there is convergence in performance most often, then:
– The possibilitiy is there to open up the tech rules set, be much less restricitve (while retaining a simple, or even spec aero otoh, so open up most of the other fields, and be very lenient apart from capping the costs so much that it should be a challenge to have/copy everything what the oppostions has)
– At much lower costs, so much lower financial investments there should be much less resistance to take the beating for a seasons, so let’s change the tech rules per season quite siginficantly. I think quite many things would be invented in F1 this way too. Meanwhile the things are currently invented are most often kept in secret at best.
Most likely the manufacturers do not want to do things like that, they are goood with their ok-ish mid term financial prognosis.
Using the saved money, manufacturers and their sponsors like the IT giants could be mandated to develop actually fast stewarding tools. These IT giants have all the data of the world, thes should not waste their energy to create on screen graphics for the broadcast, what is at the level of an ok computer graphics college homework.
They could create something to be proud of: very fast incident analysis tools. This could make its way into public road safety too. This would be actual innovation. Or they could do AI researchs to create a common knowledge base to make that quite specificated chassis to be safe, even by testing unconventional approaches – AI is very good at it. This could lead to downsiinge the cars, while maintaining/improving safety, this could make its way into public road safety too. These would be innovations what could sell well on TV instead of the hollow and shallow ads we see every day.
With the let’s icrease the downforce, let’s reduce lap times at all costs, F1 can become irrelevant if the average IQ and educatedness becomes much higher. Or how it will be relevant if practically no one will be allowed to drive on public roads because it will be forbidden by the laws, as self driving cars will become significantly better at safety than humans. Not to mention that with the increased reliability and consistency we see many problems what we have experience long ago, and I listed many of those in my initial comment.
I think older eras were better as a driver’s championship, and it was better to change the tech rule set more often. I just do not like it to see the F2 graduates and the fairly talented already in F1 drivers waiting for their times, when some drivers had much more luck getting into a good car quickly. With frequently changing tech rules, much more of them would have the chance to shine. And there is a problem with the approach towards rule changes, there is so much toxicity on the internet, as the rule sets were not really changing quickly and often in the last more than a decade many, there is a very bad reluctance towards it from the fans as well.
My posts offered a possible solution/approach towards many changes, if someone not likes it, then that is not my problem. At least I can contrive something what is more like a complete system, than a band aid fix.
Jockey Ewing
1st November 2023, 17:54
Well yes, I have not quoted what you considered desirable, and I will not do so now, but it was about opening up the tech rules, to let’s have less prescriptions. I agree with that as an intention.
You mentioned bad tyres as well. I do not have an idea about a solution for that, these cars are so big and heavy, and fast as well. It is hard to compare even to tyred of not much before. I am not sure how other manufacturers would do. Formerly I have said: let’s get rid of some (short term) tyre management issues, so it should be less about overheating and cooling for shorter periods. I do not know if races with no pitstops would be good or possible with the current dimansions of the car. Now I lookd up the Indycar specs to compare, well weight wise they are not much lighter. They are 150 pounds so 68 kgs lighter, not that much considering how quickly the F1 car gained weight in the last 2 decades. And the dimensions of the tyres are very close as well. Maybe there is something to learn from there, but they have pit stops as well. I am ok with pit stops otoh, or even with a randomized tyre allocation delivered to race weekends (like lets have C1 C3 and C5 for one weekend, and C2 C3 and C5 for the next, and then C1 and C2 and C4 for the next), and see who can come up with viable strategies.
Here I mention that I like the strategy element of F1 races, especially as it is hard to overtake, and I would not mind if there would be much less overtakes. I think if a team would come up with a good car, and well optimized teamwork at my dream F1 with per season significantly changing tech rule sets, rules coming and going, then they would deserve the good results. And I see a lot of areas of improvement in the race strategy and season management field as well. (I see it in the season management if the reliability requirements and punishments for installing new car parts stay – a little or more game theory can be useful).
I think with pushing the limits too far in driving standards, reliability and consistency, coaching from the pit wall instead of leaving it to the perception of the driver, these are all action killers. And these are very available with the improvement of technology and coaching methods, the question is would it not be better to go back to something more sport like (something more of a drivers championship like)? (And to use that horrendous amount of spared money to develop something else what even these top tier companies could be proud of in the automotive and related industries, like tech what can later land in self driving cars, and public road safety, and incident analysis systems? – The good thing is, many of these as I have mentioned could be used in F1 as well, if the manufacturers would be mandated to pay for their develompent, mandated by the rules, in exchange for their participation in F1.) These things would be something to proud of, not the kept-in-secret, and regularly banned developments. These would look good and credible in TV ads even in a future proof world imo.
Jockey Ewing
1st November 2023, 18:09
Haha, and for a final post:
As AI is very good at generating unconventional ideas (I think shattering chess and Go world champions, and changind the landsacape of tournament and match preparation in these games, are a good proof of that):
Why not to try to generate an idea, what leaves everything intact in F1, but at the same time comes up with the best bandaid ever to make everything so much better? :)
This would be a cool or at least fun usage if generative AI, as I do not believe in the existence of that band aid – especially if I have to find it out myself :) In other words it is absurdly challenging to come up with such a bandaid.
Jockey Ewing
1st November 2023, 18:28
Also if one thinks that “going back in time”, or to put it more accurately to go back to a previous state (at least partially) is impossible, then:
Many processes in the universe are cyclical or periodical. History repeats itself. Do these sound familiar?
Also many once considered to be great things, approaches and even empires are only grains of sand in the ocean of history. So it is improper to consider anything everlasting.
Facts&Stats
1st November 2023, 15:22
Actually less downforce is harsher on the tyres (c.p.).
Less downforce causes the car to slide more in the corners and creates more wear (just ask Haas).
Jockey Ewing
1st November 2023, 16:34
More and more downforce can cause the tyres to fail for an other reason.
Facts&Stats
1st November 2023, 20:10
What were you thinking of?
Yes pressure (increases) creates heat, but that heat is negligible compared to the heat created by a tyre rubbing and sliding against/over the asphalt.
Of course with less downforce cars cannot take turns as fast, and when they go significantly slower it will extend tyre life as well. But we don’t call that motor racing ;)
SteveR (@stever)
2nd November 2023, 1:18
Well, sidewall loading immediately comes to mind.
Jockey Ewing
2nd November 2023, 14:19
+1 yes I think, mainly sidewall and tread separation due to endured loading.
https://www.wtf1.com/post/on-this-day-in-f1-the-ligiers-broke-because-they-had-too-much-downforce/
And with the current and the former lower diameter, higher sidewall tyres, the main problem was not the tread wear/durability. Tread wise these tyres are quite durable. With the smaller diameter tyres with higher sidewalls the separation of the tread from the sidewall was a bit too common before the switch to the new kind of tyres, I considered it also a bigger problem than tread durability (even if this is likely not the worst, explosion-like puncture, this often has precursors like vibration, and the deinflating is maybe slower a bit).
When Hamilton (and some others too) said the tyres are shot he very often just bluffed, or he just told that the tyres need short term managing, like cooling them a bit, (or in worse case they are blistered). In many of those shot cases it was still possible to go long on the tyres. I think it was a strategic element from him, exploiting the open team radio a bit, in a balanced way.
Almost every series where the car is so heavy big and comparably fast, has pit stops for tyres. But yes, I would like to see tyres what have a bit wider temperature window, so needs a bit less short term managing.
Maybe with a bit smaller and lighter car in deed it would be possible to do a race distance on one sets of hards with meaningful pace otoh. So maybe it would be possible to have races without pit stops for those who would like them (me not necessarily, if that would be the only change.)
Its a bit bad to see that at some points of the races they do close to 10secs / lap laptimes compared to the quali laptimes or lap records. But this is not only down to the tyres, but also the cars and their major parts have to last many races. Still with considerably smaller and lighter, and less aero dependent cars they could go fast alongside each other, and there would not be a necessity to blame the great and estabilshed circuits, with great fan crowd and heriatage, and to build some new ones instead of them (which ones might not be used for long in some cases)
I think Domenicali said in that inteview that they inted to move in these directions, but very incrementally. So the car might stop gaining weight and size, and eventually they will downscale it a bit. I do not consider having complex aero elements the only way to go, and I would enjoy much slower cars too, if they are much more spectacular. A tyre war, with one of the tyre manufacturers considerably underperforming is the last thing I would see in this toxic internet era. Having 2 tyre marques would also mean, that the teams maybe would have individual contracts with them, and maybe there would be favouritism towards a bigger team per tyre marque, developing for them, and not really caring about the others, to make it even worse unless this approach would be entirely forbidden.
Nick T.
2nd November 2023, 13:32
Prost had so many DNFs while leading and/or after being on pole.
MichaelN
1st November 2023, 15:48
This can’t be emphasised enough. Prost had perhaps the best selection of teammates, and to win as much as he did is very impressive indeed.
Compare Niki Lauda, Keke Rosberg, Nigel Mansell, Damon Hill and of course Ayrton Senna to… Sainz, Ricciardo, Gasly, Albon and … Pérez? It’s not even in the same ballpark.
It’s frustrating and disappointing that people who want to be paid millions to ‘manage’ an F1 team are mortified by the idea of having to work with two competitive drivers.
some racing fan
2nd November 2023, 4:43
Prost also had to compete against a smattering of really good drivers who weren’t his teammates, like Nelson Piquet, Carlos Reutemann, Alan Jones, Derek Warwick (underrated driver IMO), Gerhard Berger, Michele Alboreto, Riccardo Patrese and Jean Alesi, among others.
Nick T.
2nd November 2023, 13:35
That’s why need this BS rumor of RBR signing Alonso to actually come true.
Olivier
1st November 2023, 16:53
I would like to add that there were fewer races in the season. This means that Prost got his wins from different racing seasons driving a different kind of car that may or may not be as dominant as the race winning car that preceded it.
some racing fan
2nd November 2023, 4:52
That’s right- ‘86 is the prime example. McLaren’s C-spec. MP4/2 that year was not as dominant as the previous MP4/2’s in ‘84 and ‘85 had been- it was still super fast on fast tracks, and it was still probably the quickest in high-speed corners- but Williams’s FW11 was clearly the best car in ‘86- Mansell and Piquet won 9 races between them, Williams-Honda won the constructors’ championship but Prost won the title at Adelaide because he was consistent, had a lot of good points-paying finishes and had won 4 races (including Adelaide). That was what made Prost so good- his racing guile and his strategic approach to racing (you could do more than just be quick and not make mistakes to win races back then) and he was of course very, very fast. Not Senna fast (no one is that fast), but still seriously fast.
AJ
2nd November 2023, 11:59
ah! but doesn’t it also mean that Prost’s competitors were also affected by DNF’s, that is, it is entirely possible that if the cars had been more reliable then the races that Prost lost due to DNF could have been negated by races won by competitors not DNF’ing?
Nick T.
2nd November 2023, 13:30
Exactly, all this stat did was elevate my awe of Prost.
Electroball76
1st November 2023, 8:55
As many have said before, it’s difficult to draw absolute conclusions from statistics in sport. There are so many variables involved that driver skill is almost a secondary consideration. After all, who would have predicted that Button would be world champion after so many years?
I think it’s nice just to appreciate the huge effort by everyone involved in every team. They’re living their dream and that’s awesome and inspiring.
Dex
1st November 2023, 9:01
Nah, nah, fewer starts doesn’t make it be what it sounds to be. There are many factors, but the main factor is the long seasons we’re having now. If you have a good season it is long and you score absolutely crazy number of wins. It happened with Hamilton, it happened with Verstappen. That’s why I hate this obsession with statistics that all the media and fan sites like this one are forcing on us. You can’t tell a story this way. It’s a twisted truth. If Liberty remains as greedy and things go well for F1, there will be even longer seasons, probably with two race weekends (I’m not talking about sprints). Some day we may have someone score 30 wins in a season. And that guy may not be as brilliant a driver as Verstappen is, but some new Bottas from Mercedes days, just without his Hamilton. But I know why you like the stats, it’s easy. You just dig and find some new numbers and make a story out of it.
AlanD
1st November 2023, 11:06
Good points Dex, especially about dominant cars in longer seasons. This is sort of what I imagined Wolf was talking about when he said “Wiki stats”. For instance, Hamilton has won 100+ GPs, which puts him at the top of the table for most GPs won, but it doesn’t mean much when you consider that Fangio, for example, only had 51 races in his entire career, and these days you can get drivers running well over a hundred starts without ever winning a race. Likewise when they talk about points scored in a season or a career, when the points rules change so much from year to year, is more of a TV soundbite than a proper statistic. Things like number of championships won or positions in the WDC are more meaningful and more comparable over the years.
Jere (@jerejj)
1st November 2023, 9:10
FP1 became the first official GP weekend session to feature more than one Danish driver & three Aussies.
The third entirely lapping-free 2023 race & the first such Mexico race since the 2015 return.
The fifth consecutive race that at least one driver started from the pit exit, which must be a new record.
Red Andy (@red-andy)
1st November 2023, 13:12
On that last stat, I recall that when the three new teams joined at the start of 2010 it took quite a long time to form a complete grid of 24 cars as there were many occasions when the new teams had to start from the pit lane or were unable to take the start altogether. I don’t know how many consecutive races we saw pit lane starters, though.
MichaelN
1st November 2023, 15:51
Just the first two, but then in Malaysia (#3) De la Rosa was unable to start so he effectively retired on the grid.
The first race with a full 24 starters leaving the grid was Canada, race 8. That only lasted a lap, though.
MichaelV12 (@michaelv12)
1st November 2023, 9:19
Verstappen is extremely impressive, but let’s also bear in mind that Prost took his four WC titles with two different teams (McLaren and Williams) and could very well have taken a fifth WC title in 1990 with a third team (Ferrari) if he hadn’t been punted off at Suzuka.
Prost won Grands Prix with:
Renault – 9 wins
McLaren – 30 wins
Ferrari – 5 wins
Williams – 7 wins
Not taking anything away from Verstappen here – he has been absolutely brilliant, and I have no doubt that he could win with a different team too.
Whether he wants to have a go at that is of course up to him.
AlanD
1st November 2023, 11:10
Also good points Michael. Alonso and Vettel are drivers who I thought should have been capable of winning an additional WDC when they moved to Ferrari, but whilst both are undobtedly good drivers, they couldn’t replicate the success in two different teams.
MichaelV12 (@michaelv12)
1st November 2023, 16:24
Fully agree – Alonso and Vettel were both capable of winning titles with Ferrari and both were close to doing it, but things did not quite work out for them in the end.
It would be very interesting to see Verstappen in a Ferrari at some point. Ferrari already has a strong driver lineup at the moment – but surely they would not say no to Verstappen?
Way back in the early days of Formula One, Juan Fangio is still up there having taken his five titles with four different teams (Alfa, 2xMercedes, Ferrari & Maserati).
José Lopes da Silva
1st November 2023, 9:42
Both Prost and Verstappen are all-time phenomenons, but in different ways. A site like Racefans should go beyond this simplistic statistics.
It would be interesting to check how many drivers were able to win at least 15% of races in a given season and check for how many season they were able to achieve it. That would give us a “dominance period” or a kind of a “driver era”. I suppose Prost might have achieved that straight from 1981 to 1990, with two different teams, team-mates including Lauda, K. Rosberg, Senna and Mansell, and in an era were DNF were frequent, very unlike now.
LosD (@losd)
1st November 2023, 11:59
This is specifically the “Stats and facts” article that goes after every single grand prix. There are plenty of in-depth articles, that is not the point of this one.
Coventry Climax
1st November 2023, 11:15
The only podium where the winner wears a sombrero. Great achievement!
On a more serious note, I fear that the next winner in Zandvoort will have to wear wooden shoes and gets a bouquet of tulips. Which makes me wonder what the american winners will have to wear. Semi-automatics?
pSynrg (@psynrg)
1st November 2023, 12:16
I think just the Stetson they already wear, will do.
Jimmy Cliff
1st November 2023, 11:15
Race starts till 51st win:
MSC: 157 starts (Hungary 2001)
Max: 182 starts (Mexico 2023)
Lewis: 186 starts (Mexico 2016)
Prost: 193 starts (Hockenheim 1993)
Vettel: 208 starts (Silverstone 2018)
Max extended his records of most wins in last 20 & 30 races to 17 and 25 wins.
Max matched Lewis in most podiums in last 20 & 30 races with 19 and 27 podiums. If Max is on the podium in Brazil he will match Lewis in most podiums in last 50 races with 44 podiums.
Max has broken the record of largest gap between 1st and 2nd in Championship, the end tally is still to be determined but currently 251 points and it will be minimal 167 points (84 points still available) breaking Vettel’s 2013 record of 155 points.
Max also improved on his % of maximum score, last year 76.2% (454/596) and this year it will be minimum 79.2% (491/620). Actual is 91.9% (491/536) after 19 races or 93.9% (446/475) if you exclude sprint/FLAP.
This is by the far highest % ever (counting all races) – current record is held by Schumacher 2002 all podium season with 84.7% (144/170). Adjusted for 2023 point system Schumacher achieved 89.4% (380/425) in 2002.
Max scored points for the 38th consecutive race weekend scoring 920 points, this is the 2nd longest and best scoring streak. Lewis is record holder with 48th consecutive race weekend scoring streak scoring 1,008 points.
Max extended the # of laps lead in a season to 854 (74.5% of all laps this season), he needs to lead 93 of the remaining 179 laps to break the 71.47% laps lead set by Jim Clark in 1963.
In career laps lead stat Max has now overtaken Prost to 5th place with 2,709 laps behind Lewis, Schumacher, Vettel and Senna.
With Lewis now keeping his 2nd place – Lewis & Max extended their record of the most frequent couple on top 2 tops to 36.
Luke S (@joeypropane)
1st November 2023, 13:06
There’s no doubt Max is an absolute generational talent – but I really wish he had a team mate that could challenge him every weekend in the other car.
The comparisons to Prost, with the calibre of drivers he had on the opposite side of the team garage, are slightly diluted when you consider how easy Max has had it within the environment he’s working in. More suitable to compare him to Schumacher in that sense, and he’s got some ways to go yet before he is at that level.
MichaelN
1st November 2023, 17:34
I don’t know how Irvine was seen prior to joining Ferrari, but Barrichello was very much considered a talent. His fate alongside Schumacher is somewhat reminiscent of the old quip about the Roman emperor Galba, of whom it was said that ‘had he never been emperor, nobody would have doubted his ability to reign’. Being paired with Schumacher is not a great career booster, and Barrichello held his own quite well against Button later on. Schumacher also ran circles around Massa in 2006, who proved himself (more than) a match for Räikkönen in 2008 and 2009 in particular.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
1st November 2023, 21:12
Yes, I’m guessing this is a bit the same situation as perez and ricciardo, they were highly regarded before having verstappen as team mate, great drivers make good drivers look average.
GechiChan (@gechichan)
1st November 2023, 14:35
Statistics don’t mean much nowadays, they just take away from the legendary status of the old school drivers. You can not compare the reliability of the eras, how hard to drive the cars were back then, or how short the seasons were. Now, if you have a very dominant car and a weak team-mate, you can practically score 23 wins in a single season. Statistics don’t mean much lately.
Facts&Stats
1st November 2023, 15:33
Statistics mean just as much today; probably even more due to the increased dataset.
The interpretation of statistics is where it gets hairy.
Reading suggestion: ‘How to Lie with Statistics’ by Darrell Huff ;)
AlanD
2nd November 2023, 16:30
F&S, bonus points for a good book reference, written 70 years ago but still just as true today. I think the problem nowadays is people taking data out of context, not knowing the difference between facts and stats, averaging things which should not be averaged together, etc, and calling these things “statistics”. Everyone thinks they are an expert. I particularly noticed it during the pandemic, when the conspiracy theorists would churn out mangled numbers to support their tinfoil hat ideas and claim “the data doesn’t lie”.
Oli
1st November 2023, 17:56
Prost had the “fortune” to have many WDC as teammates, so he was in an uncomfortable position compared to Max who hasn’t been in that position so far.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
1st November 2023, 21:17
Having said this, I don’t see how ricciardo is any worse than damon hill, and could definitely have won a title if his schumacher (verstappen) had been on a weaker car and he had been in a good car against not incredibly strong drivers, let alone a car like the 1996 williams.
paulgilb (@paulgilb)
1st November 2023, 22:46
6 of the last 8 Mexico GPs have seen a team lock out the front row.
Leclerc’s first non-Sprint Weekend pole and podium of 2023.
First time Hamilton has started outside the top 3 in Mexico.
Bottas has always reached Q3 in Mexico City.
Hulkenberg has become the second driver (after Andrea de Cesaris) to manage 200 GP starts without a win.
3rd consecutive race weekend where Albon has scored exactly 2 points.
4th time in the last 5 races that only 15 of the 20 cars were running at the finish – in the first 14 GPs of this season, only Australia had fewer than 16.
8th is the first points-scoring position which Piastri has twice managed on a Sunday.
Hamilton has finished in each of 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th three times on a Sunday in 2023.
Barring an unlikely return, de Vries is guaranteed to finish lower in the 2023 Drivers’ Championship than he managed in 2022 (when he only competed in 1 race).
Verstappen’s 5th Mexico City win – equals the Red Bull Ring.
Leclerc has not converted any of his last 11 pole positions into a win – second only to Arnoux (13 in a row between 1979 and 1982).
Thanks to statsf1 and the official F1 site for some of these.
some racing fan
2nd November 2023, 4:34
Those stats are not comparable. In Prost’s time there were many more extenuating factors- car unreliability and the amount of races done in a season. The cars were a lot more unreliable back in the 80s and early 90s, and all of Prost’s cars before 1990 had old-school manual gearboxes. You all should see some of the engine or turbo failures those 80s F1 cars had- and most times those engine failures were caused by missed gears. Stefan Johansson in his Ferrari at Mexico ‘86 is one example. Whereas nowadays the cars are so reliable that 90 percent of the time retirements are caused by crashes.
some racing fan
2nd November 2023, 4:36
Also in Prost’s time there were never more than 16 races a season.
Jeffrey Powell
2nd November 2023, 9:32
Comparing Max to Prost is a legitimate exercise statistically. But from a fans point of view it may be dependent on if you personally viewed both drivers careers as they happened with an adult perspective . I consider myself fortunate to have been an admirer of Prost , I was thirty when he began his career in F1, but from on outright speed point of view we would say Senna.was quicker. So getting away from the statistics if it were a vote for the most admirable it would be Prost he was a self made among the greatest drivers ,not starting Karting until his teens and financing his early efforts with his own earnings. I hate to single out Max mainly because he is certainly outstanding but many of today’s drivers have been manufactured from a very young age by very wealthy parents and in Max’s. case a highly driven and knowledgeable father. If Max is winning an Ice race championship when he is in his 50’s I might make them more equal (you will probably have to contact me by seance to let me Know).
Anuj Chopra
2nd November 2023, 10:37
What you said is correct. But why did Mick ( and so many others ) are not able to do what he is doing. Max certainly is more talented than rest of the field and is full of determination.
Τάσος
2nd November 2023, 22:14
On the occasion of the race in Qatar, Fernando Alonso broke Michael Schumacher’s record for the duration of participation in f1 races after winning the first world title.
on 13/11/1994 Schumacher won the championship for the first time and 18 years and 12 days later on 25/11/2012 he participates for the last time.
Alonso on 25/9/2005 becomes champion for the first time and on 8/10/2023 he participates in the race in Qatar, 18 years and 13 days earlier than his first championship!