Ending the F1 GOAT debate!
- Racing Statistics
- Feb 1
- 3 min read
Updated: Feb 7
The F1 GOAT debate has been a topic that is inevitable in F1 communities. We tried to give you some arguments in a previous post and after hearing your feedback we decided to give it another go and we believe now we have everything to end this debate once and for all.. or at least give it our best shot!
Step 1 of the process is as always to recalculate every F1 race since 1950 with a modern points system. In this case we used 2024 points system but we excluded awarding Fastest Lap point - because in eras when fastest lap wasn't awarded drivers were not even going for it. So this evens the field a bit more.
Step 2 was a bit more tedious and it was to somehow adjust the length of the F1 seasons to account for season that had 7 races and season now with 24 races. This was a bit challenging but I think we got it right.
First we got the number of races for each season - then we decided that we will use 24 races as the base number of races and try to add value to seasons with less races by multiplying their points by a factor of difference to even them with the base season of 24 races.
This would mean that a win in 2024 season (with 24 races in season) would be worth the same = 25 points, but a win in a season with only 8 races would be worth x3 because 24/8=3. So that would be 75 points for a win in a season with 8 races.
I know there are other factors and maybe x3 in this case is too big of a multiplier to adjust for but I think it is close enough - considering that also in the early Formula 1 years DNFs were a lot more common occasion and the whole sport was a lot riskier place than today.
Anyway, please enjoy the interactive bar chart race below where we accumulate the points for each driver, and then scroll even further as we will try to end the debate by calculating average points per race with this new system!
Feel free to move the bar at the bottom and add/remove countries by clicking on the Legend in the bottom!
Only 6 F1 Drivers have been on the top with this adjusted system:
Nino Farina - less then a year
Alberto Ascari - 2 years
Juan Manual Fangio - 37 years
Alain Prost - 13 years
Michael Schumacher - 19 years
Lewis Hamilton - 3 years and counting
Fun Fact: Lewis Hamilton overtook Michael Schumacher when he lost to Max Verstappen in 2021!
Now if we want to adjust a bit more to account for longevity of drivers careers we can divide the total points won with this system, by the number of seasons the Top 40 drivers on the list competed in - and the results get shaken a little bit.
Here are the results of that calculation:
F1 Driver | Total Points | Total Seasons | Points per Season |
Lewis Hamilton | 6262 | 18 | 348 |
Max Verstappen | 3257 | 10 | 326 |
Alain Prost | 3770 | 13 | 290 |
Michael Schumacher | 5509 | 19 | 289 |
Juan Manuel Fangio | 2602 | 9 | 289 |
Ayrton Senna | 2828 | 11 | 257 |
Jackie Stewart | 2286 | 9 | 254 |
Sebastian Vettel | 4051 | 17 | 238 |
Jim Clark | 2064 | 9 | 229 |
Damon Hill | 1616 | 8 | 202 |
Nico Rosberg | 2172 | 11 | 197 |
Denny Hulme | 1908 | 10 | 191 |
Fernando Alonso | 4017 | 21 | 191 |
Kimi Raikkonen | 3610 | 19 | 190 |
Nelson Piquet | 2613 | 14 | 187 |
Mika Hakkinen | 2025 | 11 | 184 |
Charles Leclerc | 1496 | 9 | 166 |
David Coulthard | 2471 | 15 | 165 |
Carlos Reutemann | 1804 | 11 | 164 |
Valtteri Bottas | 2118 | 13 | 163 |
Niki Lauda | 2073 | 13 | 159 |
Stirling Moss | 1750 | 11 | 159 |
Emerson Fittipaldi | 1711 | 11 | 156 |
Jody Scheckter | 1394 | 9 | 155 |
Bruce McLaren | 1858 | 12 | 155 |
Nigel Mansell | 2275 | 15 | 152 |
Gerhard Berger | 2111 | 14 | 151 |
Felipe Massa | 2192 | 15 | 146 |
Mark Webber | 1746 | 12 | 146 |
Jack Brabham | 2287 | 16 | 143 |
Ralf Schumacher | 1554 | 11 | 141 |
Rubens Barrichello | 2672 | 19 | 141 |
Graham Hill | 2500 | 18 | 139 |
Jenson Button | 2427 | 18 | 135 |
Sergio Perez | 1805 | 14 | 129 |
Jean Alesi | 1524 | 13 | 117 |
John Surtees | 1635 | 14 | 117 |
Daniel Ricciardo | 1573 | 14 | 112 |
Jacques Laffite | 1447 | 13 | 111 |
Riccardo Patrese | 1691 | 17 | 99 |
In another analysis we used a bit different model - first step is the same and we recalculate every race with the 2025 F1 points system but in the second step where we account for the number of races per season, instead of multiplying by factor, we calculate average points per race and the results are quite interesting to say at least.
The truth is something in between both articles!
See that article here!
If you wanna see which country wins most points per driver - Check this Article!
Watch the F1 2025 Pre-Season Testing with us:
Though it won’t give the same pretty animation, I can’t help but feel mere longevity in the sport skews some of these figures. Surely a simpler math, and more accurate set of data, is to keep all the original points scoring systems, and merely record what percentage of total available points for a season a driver achieves. And average across the number of seasons/races they competed in.
Why don't U divide it by seasons competed in? That was the races are equalised