Red Bull told Max Verstappen he had set a new record for highest winning percentage in a season following his victory in the Brazilian Grand Prix yesterday.
Ignoring the recently introduced sprint races but counting all other events which awarded world championship points, including the Indianapolis 500 and Formula 2 races of 1950 to 1960, Verstappen has indeed broken a record Alberto Ascari held for over seven decades.Verstappen has won 17 of the 20 grands prix held so far this year. Even if he failed to win the remaining two he would end the year with a win rate of 77.27%, trumping Ascari’s long-standing record of 75% set in 1952, the third season of the world championship.
Of the eight world championship rounds held in 1952, all bar one were run to Formula 2 rules. The other was the Indianapolis 500, which counted towards the world championship at the time, and was run to an entirely different set of regulations. Unlike many of his world championship rivals, Ascari did contest that race, but it was one of only two that year he didn’t win.
Red Bull informed Verstappen of his achievement on the radio after he took the chequered flag and celebrated by playing his favourite record. He sang along to a few bars of “Green, Green Grass of Home” – a 1966 hit for Tom Jones originally performed by Johnny Darrell:
| Speaker | Message |
|---|---|
| Lambiase | Max, I’ll let you into a little secret. If my maths is right, I think you have just overtaken Ascari. That’s a record from 1952, mate. In terms of percentage wins in a season. |
| Verstappen | Yeah, we did that. We all did that. |
| Horner | Another historic one. See if you recognise this. |
| Tom Jones’ “Green, Green Grass of Home” plays | |
| Verstappen | Very nice. |
| Verstappen | I’m not a good singer. I like to listen to it. |
| Verstappen | Singing Of home… Let’s go! The old house is still standing, the paint is cracked and dry… |
| Horner | Well done mate. Radio Red Bull. |
| Verstappen | Something new we can start. |
| Lambiase | Just don’t give up the day job. |
| Verstappen | I think I’m better at that. |
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But while Red Bull seemed to make a big deal of Verstappen’s latest F1 record, he seemed unfussed about the statistic and its significance.
“It’s not something that when I joined F1, I need to have a 75% win record over a season,” he said. “These kinds of things come along when everything just works really well.”
Of the three grands prix Verstappen has failed to win this year, two were won by team mate Sergio Perez, while Carlos Sainz Jnr inflicted the only defeat on Red Bull so far this season in Singapore.
“I feel good in the car, the car is very competitive, and the team barely makes mistakes as well, so then you can get a season like we are having,” Verstappen explained. “So for me it’s more about just enjoying the moment and trying to maximise every single opportunity.”
Since Ascari set the record the closest any driver came to beating it before Verstappen was Michael Schumacher in 2004. He won 12 of the first 13 races that year, but only one of the last five.
Highest winning percentages in a world championship season
| Rank | Driver | Year | Wins | Races | Rate (%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Max Verstappen | 2023 | 17 | 20 | 85 |
| 2 | Alberto Ascari | 1952 | 6 | 8 | 75 |
| 3 | Michael Schumacher | 2004 | 13 | 18 | 72.22 |
| 4 | Jim Clark | 1963 | 7 | 10 | 70 |
| 5 | Sebastian Vettel | 2013 | 13 | 19 | 68.42 |
| 6 | Max Verstappen | 2022 | 15 | 22 | 68.18 |
| 7 | Juan Manuel Fangio | 1954 | 6 | 9 | 66.67 |
| 8 | Michael Schumacher | 2002 | 11 | 17 | 64.71 |
| 9 | Lewis Hamilton | 2020 | 11 | 17 | 64.71 |
| 10 | Jim Clark | 1965 | 6 | 10 | 60 |
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2023 Brazilian Grand Prix
- Perez’s missed “open goal” in Miami was turning point in title fight – Horner
- F1 drivers insist new rules to prevent impeding in qualifying don’t work
- McLaren surprised by margin over rivals at track Norris thought would be “tough”
- “Follow Fernando’s line” – How Red Bull tried everything to get Perez past Alonso
- Mercedes’ Brazilian GP set-up was “conservative” after US GP disqualification
f1statsfan (@)
6th November 2023, 13:13
Max also has already broken the % of maximum points scored counting all and only main race points in a season.
Currently he has 471 points (excl 45 sprint and 8 FLAP points) of 500 maximum (20 races * 25 points for win) = 94.20%.
If he fails to score any extra points this season he will be at 85.64% (471 / 550) beating current record holder Michael Schumacher 2002 season with 84.71% (144 / 170).
Interestingly enough the FIA changed the point system after Michael Schumacher won the title with 6 races left in the 2002 season but with that new point system Schumacher would have scored an even higher % of maximum points 91.76% (156 / 170).
Michael (@freelittlebirds)
6th November 2023, 13:32
Under the new scoring system (no fastest laps), Schumacher would have scored 89.41% (380 out of 425).
If Verstappen wins the next 2 races, he’ll have 521 out of 550 which is 94.72% and, frankly speaking, a world apart from Schumacher’s 89.41% (comparable scoring) or 84.71% under the old scoring system.
If we change Verstappen’s scoring to the old system (10,6,4,3,2,1), Verstappen would have 184 out of 200 points or 92%.
MichaelN
6th November 2023, 13:34
Yes, but that system was more designed to devalue the win by bumping the 2nd place finisher to 8 points. And it worked really well in 2003, in that Räikkönen won only once but was able to stay in contention until the final race.
Verstappen’s percentage is impressive, and highlights what a poor job Red Bull is doing for the sport by filling their second car with, of all people, Pérez. And no matter what percentage Verstappen gets to, he won’t equal the more impressive outcome of that 2002 season: Schumacher was on the podium every single race.
f1statsfan (@)
6th November 2023, 14:16
That indeed is extremely impressive but IMO Verstappen’s 2023 season is more impressive than Schumacher 2002 season. Simply because I value more the more wins over the 1 missed podium
Schumacher 17 out of 17 podiums but 11 wins
Verstappen 19 out of 20 podiums but 17 wins + 6 out of 6 sprint podiums
Schumacher missed 7 positions from being perfect (5x 1 position and 1x 2 positions) / 17 races = 0.41 per race
Verstappen missed 6 positions from being perfect (2x 1 position and 1x 4 positions) / 20 races = 0.30 per race
Also interestingly that the 2002 and 2023 in terms of domination are quite similar both in gaps between top team drivers as top team with the rest of the grid.
MichaelN
6th November 2023, 17:11
The 11 wins needs some context, though. Schumacher came 3rd in Malaysia, behind the Williams duo (on a related note, Williams often being quite competitive, especially in qualifying with their BMW engine further adds to the how great Schumacher’s achievement was) and lost the win to Coulthard/McLaren in Monaco.
The other four races where he did not win were all won by Rubens Barrichello, his teammate. And in each of those cases, Schumacher finished less than 5 tenths – not seconds, tenths – behind. In other words, these were gifts* and payback for Barrichello’s help earlier in the season, especially after the rather contentious win he gifted Schumacher in Austria. And it also made sure Barrichello finished comfortably ahead of Montoya and Schumacher to take 2nd in the standings. (*In the case of the US race, probably unintentionally so.)
So without any Ferrari shenanigans with fixing the order, Schumacher would likely have won 14, maybe even 15, races that year.
Frank
6th November 2023, 17:30
In fact, I think Clark scored 100% of available points in 1963.
Due to the rules counting only the 6 best finishes, Clark even had a win discarded from his total and scored 54 points of a maximum 54 available. (Only 9 points for a win in 1963)
It took until the nineties before all race results were counted.
f1statsfan (@)
7th November 2023, 7:09
Correct up to 1990 the driver championship was not decided by the sum of all race results but the drivers best race results.
Still in terms of available/possible points driver could score more, they just didn’t count towards driver championship.
In 1963 & 1965 there were 10 races and the 6 best results counted towards the championship, Clark won 7 races in 1963 and 6 in 1965 so in both years had the maximum possible score for the championship but didn’t score the maximum of available points. Similar Albert Ascari won 6 of the 8 races in 1952 while only the 4 best results counted towards the championship.
Using this measure there are 4 other drivers above Max Verstappen:
1953 Ascari 34 of 36 = 94.44%
1954 Fangio 42 of 45 – 93.33%
1962 Graham Hill 42 of 45 – 93.33%
1966 Jack Brabham 42 of 45 – 93.33%
That said if you use similar method Max also scored 100% if you take the best results of 50-70% of total races – Max would have all wins.
The more accurate measurement is to count all races in a season and only count points awarded for the main race so ignoring sprint races & bonus points for FLAP. Obviously the point scoring mechanism itself also influences the result – these days the top 10 get points and the % gap between 1st and other positions has changed as well.
From 1991 to 2002 the gap to 2nd was 40% and 3rd 60%, in 2003 this was reduced to 20% and 40%.
So in my data set I use the latest point scoring system, count all and only main races results.
This puts Max so far after 20 races as the first driver to be above 90%.
Frank
7th November 2023, 12:44
Agreed on all points but you have to add a little nuance the statement above.
Inarguably, all of the metrics that you mentioned are accurate – since they conform with reality.
The question resolves to finding an indicator that best indicates… something, f.e. the most dominant season in F1. Your metric is a way to do that. It is a matter of definition/choice on whether or not you want to include car reliability when estimating dominance. F.e. in 1965, Jim Clark was never beaten on track. He did not start in Monaco, and retired with technical problems from the last 3 races. Ascari – as you said – and Rindt (1970) achieved similar features. I am not sure that this is less dominant.
This all goes to say that one should always be careful when interpreting statistics.
So, depending on what you want to measure, your metric may be the fairest way to compare different eras. However, you would be equally justified to argue that Ascari, Clark and Rindt had even more dominant seasons than Verstappen 2023.
(For the record, Verstappen absolutely has a stunning season. I can’t back it up with data, but I am convinced that he makes the car look (even) better than it is. Not dropping the ball in any of those rain-hit races is phenomenally impressive.)
Michael (@freelittlebirds)
6th November 2023, 13:21
He didn’t break it – he obliterated it :-)
Doesn’t this season have the most races in a season along with 2022? That makes it even more incredible.
Max really seems to relish these races the most too so it’s a match made in heaven.
I actually wonder if Drive To Survive will even have a season this year and what it will focus on. I guess we’ll take trips to Pirelli’s factories and see how the compounds are each made and then watch the paint dry on some liveries. You can see McLaren uses a much more advanced compound on its vehicles that only takes 30 minutes for a coating to cure. Mercedes’s coating on the other hand took 30 minutes and 10 seconds! In the next episode, we’ll meet all the sheep on Horner’s farm!
Esteban
6th November 2023, 22:13
We can have three or maybe four whole episodes listening to Pérez’ excuses.
Rhys Lloyd (@justrhysism)
7th November 2023, 3:43
@freelittlebirds DTS has seldom been about the championship and has usually focused on the midfield battles (thanks in part to the top teams not wanting to be involved at the beginning).
I’ve actually quite enjoyed this season. We get to see someone at the top of their game blowing away records, while watching all the battles and drama throughout the rest of the pack.
How will Ferrari screw their strategy? Will Perez make it up the field? How good is Tsunoda really? Oh Piastri is rustling Norris’ feathers a little. Aston Martin fast, then slow… then slower… then fast again. How long before Hamilton complains about the car/tyres this race? I could go on and on—there is so much going on behind Verstappen.
Although the Sky and BBC commentators all seem to put so much emphasis on the win, that watching Max drive into the distance is boring—where it’s their job to point out all the battles and drama throughout the rest of the field. And it’s exciting!
Jere (@jerejj)
6th November 2023, 13:26
Unfortunately, the post-race radio comm didn’t get played long enough for that song to get heard on the world feed broadcast during the cooldown lap.
Nevertheless, Daniel Ricciardo, Lando Norris, Carlos Sainz, Yuki Tsunoda, & now Max Verstappen, so I wonder who’ll be the next driver to introduce me to a song I’ve never heard.
Imre (@f1mre)
6th November 2023, 18:37
Amazing achievement.
iCarbs (@icarby)
7th November 2023, 6:30
For me most dominant driver/car/team combination and predicted that it would turn out this way.
Apart from Singapore (clear outlier) have they even been close to losing a race?
Suspect Rbr will continue to do this for the rest of this decade…
The Dolphins
7th November 2023, 18:50
Certainly until they move away from Honda power units; I am in awe of their reliability.
Ferdinand
8th November 2023, 7:49
Seb is around in a lot of the records stuff. Kind of stains the whole thing, which is a pity. It makes clear stats dont always tell the story. He was at best a mediocre driver or one trick pony (the fastest over a single lap with no one around) that lucked into a combination of a very dominant car and a bad team mate for four years in a row. Never won anything if not starting from the front row, under par in wheel to wheel action.