From Fangio to Verstappen: F1’s eras of one-driver domination

Max Verstappen: 2021-24

Across the past four seasons Max Verstappen has won 53 of the 90 races run, leaving Red Bull’s ace on a strike rate of 59 per cent. The pattern across his four championship-winning seasons has a degree of symmetry about it: two seasons of complete domination – 2022 with 15 wins, 2023 with an astonishing 19 – bookended by a pair in which he was made to work a little harder for his titles. That said, ten wins in 2021 and even nine in what turned out to be a tricky season last term are still great numbers.

They say the first title is always the sweetest, but when Verstappen eventually retires and looks back at his career, it wouldn’t be a surprise if he admits to mixed feelings about the 2021 crown. That was a fantastically competitive season with elements all too rarely featured in modern-era F1 campaigns: two teams in Mercedes and Red Bull, and two drivers in Lewis Hamilton and Verstappen that were incredibly evenly matched. The title race swung back and forth between the pair all year, with an increasing degree of angst, particularly after the high-speed collision at Silverstone’s Copse corner that left Verstappen lucky to avoid serious injury.

It was among the hardest-fought F1 seasons and either driver would have deserved the crown. But the way it ended has left a black smudge that cannot be forgotten. How race director Michael Masi broke the FIA’s own rules on a late-race restart to hand Verstappen a huge and unfair performance advantage made it among F1’s most controversial moments – which still haunts Hamilton to this day. A win’s a win, and Verstappen certainly celebrated his first title without a flinch. But he as well as Hamilton deserved better from what turned out to be a dark chapter in F1.

The following seasons were a breeze thanks to Red Bull’s accomplished capacity to nail the biggest change in F1 technical regulations in a generation. No one could lay a glove on Verstappen for two years – and to coin his oft-used phrase, life was “simply lovely.” Not so much for anyone outside the Red Bull bubble, though.

We feared the same old story last term, as Verstappen scorched to an early lead with seven wins in the first ten races. But a four-month barren streak as McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes all found form changed the narrative, and left Verstappen scrabbling to secure that fourth consecutive title. In 2025, he’s up against it to extend his record to five.

Lewis Hamilton: 2017-20

Nico Rosberg is the last driver other than Verstappen and Hamilton to have been crowned world champion – way back in 2016. That was frankly a surprise result, after which Hamilton began a title streak that carried him all the way to that unhappy night in Abu Dhabi in 2021. But it has also left him as by far the most statistically successful F1 driver, on seven titles in total (equal with Michael Schumacher) and on 105 wins and 104 pole positions – so far.

Between 2017 and ’20 alone, Hamilton logged a remarkable 42 wins in 79 races, a victory ratio of 53 per cent. Those seasons have a tendency to blend into each other, such was Hamilton’s consistency – although at times Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc offered resistance, and even team-mate Valtteri Bottas outpaced him from time to time.

As Rosberg promptly retired following his 2016 success, Hamilton put the setback firmly behind him to pick up the interrupted run that had begun in 2014 and ’15. Vettel did however at least provide some early resistance for Ferrari, while Bottas scored three wins in his first season driving for Mercedes and Daniel Ricciardo and Verstappen also grabbed victories. But, nine wins in total, including five in six races between Spa and Austin, ensured Hamilton became a four-time champion.

Vettel again made a fast start in 2018, winning the first two races in Australia and Bahrain. But this was also the year his time at Ferrari began to unravel, particularly after he skidded off while leading at home at Hockenheim – on a day when Hamilton rose from 14^th on the grid to score one of his best victories, and grab the points lead off Vettel. From there, the season result was only going one way. Bottas put up a challenge in 2019, but for a second consecutive year Hamilton notched up 11 wins and again the result never really was in doubt.

As for 2020, the biggest threat to Hamilton’s run was Covid. As our world stopped turning for a few months, even F1 was forced into mothballs. When the season eventually began in July, with 17 races impressively squeezed in at venues closed to crowds, Hamilton still managed to win 11 again. Of all his seven titles it was perhaps his most satisfying.

Sebastian Vettel: 2010-13

During Vettel’s four-year title span, the German won 34 times in 77 races – or 44 per cent of the grands prix. Like his Red Bull successor Verstappen, twice he was utterly dominant, twice he was pushed harder for his success. But the pattern was different.

In 2010, Vettel only led the championship for the first time when it counted the most – after the final race in Abu Dhabi. Five drivers could have been champion that year, in a thrilling scrap that swung between McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button, Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso and Red Bull’s Vettel and Mark Webber. Ferrari leaving Alonso stuck behind Vitaly Petrov’s Renault for more than half the race left the Spaniard fuming in frustration – but Vettel won his first title properly, by winning from pole position.

Red Bull’s technical team, led by Adrian Newey, handed Vettel a clear advantage the following year as he racked up 11 wins and 15 pole positions in 19 races. Too easy. But 2012 was tougher as once again; Alonso came close to making the difference for Ferrari but a string of four wins between Singapore and India in the autumn made the difference for Vettel. Then in 2013, he created more history, winning the final nine races of the season to equal Alberto Ascari’s consecutive victory record from across 1952-53.

That was as good as it would ever get for this four-time consecutive champion. As Mercedes stole a march at the dawn of the hybrid era and Newey fumed at engine supplier Renault for failing to grasp the challenge the new power units represented, Vettel found himself overshadowed by new team-mate Daniel Ricciardo. Even when he switched to Ferrari, he was never quite the same again.

Michael Schumacher: 2000-2004

The German stands alone in this club with the unique achievement of being (currently) the sole driver to win five consecutive crowns.

Once he’d finally beaten Mika Häkkinen in 2000 to end Ferrari’s 21-year drought of drivers’ titles, Schumacher rampaged through the first five years of the new millennium. From 85 races he won 48 times – a victory ratio of 56 per cent. Never before had we seen anything like it, and the element of foregone conclusion became mind-numbing.

But even Schumacher’s run was threatened from time to time. After that great duel with Häkkinen in 2000, the McLarens still pushed him the following year, and even in 2002 – when he won 11 of the 17 races – Juan Pablo Montoya’s Williams at least equalled his pole tally of seven for the season.

A change in the points scoring system had the desired effect in 2003, as Kimi Räikkönen fell just two points short of equalling Schumacher’s tally despite only one win to the Ferrari ace’s six. But then it was business as usual in 2004, when Schumacher was almost unbeatable. He won 12 of the first 13 races, only interrupted by Jarno Trulli’s lone F1 win for Renault in Monaco.

A rules shake-up banning tyre changes in 2005 threw Bridgestone off course and opened the door for Alonso and Renault, and Schumacher never won another title. We never thought anyone would come close to such dominance – or at least hoped not! Little did we know…

Juan Manuel Fangio: 1954-57

The outlier in our club is the Maestro, who set the benchmark for the modern era in the world championship’s first decade. Far fewer points-counting races back then, of course. But, discounting the anomaly of the Indianapolis 500, which was officially part of the world championship in the 1950s even though the grand prix stars mostly avoided it, Fangio won 17 times in 28 races between 1954 and ’57 – a ratio of 61 per cent.

What also makes Fangio unique is that his total of five titles – including his first with Alfa Romeo in 1951 – were scored with four different constructors. He started 1954 with Maserati, but switched from the French Grand Prix to the returning Mercedes-Benz. Another title with the Silver Arrows followed in ’55. His least convincing – and least enjoyable –campaign still resulted in the championship with Ferrari in ’56, before he returned to Maserati and the beautifully balanced 250F for his fourth consecutive title, and fifth in total in his final season.

Circumstance forced Fangio to change teams through the decade, and naturally as the greatest of his time, he tended to find himself in the most competitive car. But, no one begrudged the Argentine his success because of the way he conducted himself during a time when motorsport was largely a gentleman’s pursuit, lacking the hard professional edge it would develop in the decades to come. A different world entirely.

Still, switching cars and constructors – and still winning – remains an admirable and rare trait. Newey’s consistency across more than 30 years with Williams, McLaren and Red Bull (and soon perhaps, Aston Martin) elevates his status as F1’s greatest designer, but few drivers beyond Fangio have managed it. That’s why, if Hamilton now pulls off a record-breaking eighth world title with Ferrari to those scored with McLaren and Mercedes, his status as the greatest of all time would be hard to deny.

Images courtesy of Motorsport Images.