How F1's wins record has been pushed up and up

It has taken 14 years and 263 races for Lewis Hamilton to match Michael Schumacher's tally of 91 world championship Formula 1 victories. It's a benchmark few drivers have held over the years, but those that have topped the list have a special place in motorsport history.

Number of wins is, of course, not the only (or even best) way of assessing drivers. Strike rates, the level of opposition and the machinery at a driver's disposal are just some of the factors that need to be considered for a true picture.

But it is safe to say that the names who have held the record are among the greatest F1 has seen and now seems the right time to look at how the mark has been pushed up over the past seven decades.

For the first two years of the world championship, Alfa Romeo stars Juan Manuel Fangio and Giuseppe Farina took it in turns to top the chart before Ferrari's Alberto Ascari took over. His 11 victories during the F2 era of the world championship, combined with the two he scored in 1951, kept him ahead until Fangio's 1954 Italian Grand Prix success took him to 13.

When he won the 1955 Argentinian GP in sweltering conditions for Mercedes Fangio moved ahead, a position he would maintain for over a decade. Ascari was killed following that year's Monaco GP and Fangio continued as F1's top talent. His 1957 German GP win, almost certainly his greatest, moved Fangio to 24.

When the great Argentinian retired the following year, Ascari was still second and no other driver had reached double figures. Fangio's great friend Stirling Moss was the next to do so, taking his 10th success in his ultimately futile attempt to win the 1958 drivers' title at the Moroccan GP finale.

Moss overtook Ascari for second, but the Easter crash at Goodwood in 1962 that ended his career left him on 16. That was a mark that Jim Clark, armed with Colin Chapman's Lotus 25 and 33 monocoque game-changers, surpassed during his second title-winning campaign in 1965.

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Clark matched Fangio's tally with victory in the 1967 season finale in Mexico. The Scot, with the now reliable Cosworth DFV-engined Lotus 49, started 1968 as clear title favourite and duly recorded his 25th world championship success in the South African GP.

But by the next round in Monaco Clark was dead and the driver that would ultimately take his record soon filled the void. Having been hamstrung by poor BRM equipment for two years, Jackie Stewart had only two victories at the time of Clark's death, but he became the benchmark in Ken Tyrrell-run Matras and his first title-winning campaign took him into double figures in 1969.

Despite running a March for most of 1970, the rise of the Lotus 72 and his own illness in 1972, Stewart kept scoring victories. In his final season in 1973 he matched Clark's tally of 25 with his third Monaco GP success and left his final figure at 27 when he won that year's German GP.

F1 now entered one of its most competitive eras and Stewart's mark seemed well out of reach as the wins were shared around. Even Niki Lauda, the most successful driver of the immediate post-Stewart, era had 'only' scored 17 wins at the time of his first retirement in 1979.

That was enough for fourth in the table, the position Lauda was still in when he returned with McLaren in 1982. He started winning again and, with his last victory in the Dutch GP, finally matched Clark in 1985. It had taken him 168 starts, compared to Clark's 72 and Stewart's 91 to reach the same level.

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By now, however, Lauda's team-mate was closing in on all of them. Alain Prost scored his 25th success in the dramatic Australian GP season finale in 1986, and he finally took the record with his 28th victory in the following year's Portuguese GP.

Stewart's record had stood for 14 years but, by now, the increased number of races per season meant the records set earlier in world championship history were more vulnerable.

Prost and Ayrton Senna did most of the winning over the next few years. Senna surpassed Stewart during his successful 1991 campaign and, following Prost's sabbatical the following year, the Brazilian moved to within eight victories of the record of 44.

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The third big name of the era, Nigel Mansell, had moved into third during the course of the Williams driver's dominant 1992 title run.

Prost's return with the advanced Williams FW15C yielded seven victories, moving him to 51. When he retired at the end of 1993, Prost was 10 clear of Senna.

Given his rival's move to the pacesetting Williams team, Prost's record looked vulnerable. But Senna's death in the 1994 San Marino GP left the three-time champion on 41, while Mansell only added one more victory - at that year's Australian GP - after his successful switch to Indycar.

With the 'big three' gone, no active driver was anywhere near the records. Schumacher didn't score his 10th victory until the 1994 European GP. Damon Hill actually matched Schumacher's score of 20 at the 1996 German GP, but the Ferrari driver soon edged clear.

When Schumacher finally ended Ferrari's long wait for the drivers' crown with victory in the 2000 Japanese GP, it moved his personal score to 43. He matched Prost at the following year's Hungarian GP (meaning that Prost's record had also lasted 14 years), having taken 156 races to get there to Prost's 193.

Schumacher's dominant run in the Ross Brawn/Jean Todt/Rory Byrne Ferrari era took him into uncharted territory, reaching 91 at the 2006 Chinese GP, his 246th world championship F1 start.

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Fernando Alonso overtook Mansell for fourth on the list with his final victory for Ferrari in 2013, but his infamous second move to McLaren proved futile. He was overtaken by Sebastian Vettel that same season and the Spaniard is still waiting for win number 33.

With Hamilton's time at McLaren also proving inconsistent, Vettel seemed the most likely to get into the big numbers during his time at Red Bull. When he finally left the team as a four-time champion he was on 39, and he overtook Senna at the 2015 Singapore GP, his third success for Ferrari.

But by then, Hamilton was at Mercedes and racking up big numbers as the Silver Arrows started its domination of the turbo-hybrid era. He had overtaken both Senna and Vettel by the end of 2015, and won at least nine races each season between 2016, the year he surpassed Prost, and 2019.

Vettel overtook Prost in 2018, but it looks extremely unlikely he will rise any higher than third on the list. Hamilton started this season with 84 and the consistent quality of both him and the Mercedes machinery has taken him to a tally that previously seemed unreachable.

Hamilton isn't finished yet, either, so it's easy to imagine him becoming the first F1 driver to score 100 world championship wins.

Records are there to be beaten but, aside from Vettel and Alonso, no other active driver is even at a quarter of Hamilton's tally. It will be many years before the record is challenged, whoever becomes F1's next benchmark driver.

F1 drivers with 20 world championship race wins or more