Do F1 drivers' careers go on too long?

There was a time when a driver starting 200 grands prix was unthinkable, yet Nico Robserg hitting that milestone at the recent Singapore Grand Prix was a barely-remarked-upon footnote to the race weekend. Formula 1 careers go on too long nowadays, right?

It could be that 300 races - a milestone Jenson Button should become the third driver to hit at Sepang next weekend after Rubens Barrichello and Michael Schumacher - soon becomes a more commonplace landmark, with Fernando Alonso next in the queue to reach it in 2018.

Seven of the 25 most prolific starters are on the current grid, and there are 11 centurions active, with Romain Grosjean due to join their ranks before the end of the season.

In terms of starts, at least, careers are getting longer. The number of races has grown over the years - in the first year of the world championship there were only seven races (six if you exclude the anomalous points-paying Indianapolis 500), rising to 21 today.

A better way of quantifying length of careers is therefore the number of seasons in which a driver was active - ie started at least one world championship race. Even with his three-season absence, Schumacher shares the record with Barrichello at 19.

TOTAL ACTIVE SEASONS

Michael Schumacher 19
Rubens Barrichello 19
Graham Hill 18
Riccardo Patrese 17
Jenson Button 17
Jack Brabham 16
Jo Bonnier 16
Jarno Trulli 15
Maurice Trintignant 15
Nigel Mansell 15
Andrea de Cesaris 15
David Coulthard 15
Fernando Alonso 15

While it may feel like F1 careers are getting longer, it's worth noting that four of the above 13 drivers - Hill, Brabham, Bonnier and Trintignant - made their debut in the '50s, with Trintignant making his first appearance in only the second world championship race in history in Monaco. So a long career is nothing new.­

How well does longevity correlate with success? Pretty well. While it goes against the conventional wisdom of old lags just hanging on, it does actually confirm that to stay around for a long time you do have to have a bit about you.

You could also argue that if you hang around long enough, you're bound to win. Although the fact that the top five drivers in the list of active seasons without a win all made Autosport's recent list of the greatest to have raced in F1 without getting a victory suggests that isn't the case.

ACTIVE SEASONS WITHOUT A WIN

Andrea de Cesaris 15
Chris Amon 14
Nick Heidfeld 12
Martin Brundle 12
Derek Warwick 11
Harry Schell 11
Roy Salvadori 11
Eddie Cheever 11

No driver has managed more than nine seasons without at least one podium finish, with Pierluigi Martini (best finish fourth) and Philippe Alliot (best finish fifth) the only ones to hang around that long without stepping onto the rostrum.

Martini can perhaps be excused, for he was a quick driver who had the misfortune of spending the vast majority of his F1 career with Minardi, for which he did manage to lead a race and qualify on the front row!

Of the current crop, Nico Hulkenberg is in his sixth season without a podium, but he has at least got a pole position. That doesn't suggest it's any easier than it once was to hang around without tangible top results - although Hulkenberg, at his best, has huge ability even if he's been a little erratic over the past couple of years.

The average length - in terms of years - of a grand prix career has also not changed dramatically in recent decades. If anything it's got a little shorter, with the peak, based on five-year periods, for those making their debut from 1980-84.

Given that the world championship started in 1950, with the after-effects of the Second World War still impacting the pool of available drivers, it's no surprise that, early on, the careers are relatively short.

AVERAGE ACTIVE SEASONS BY DEBUT YEAR

1950-54 - 3
1955-59 - 3.5
1960-64 - 3.1
1965-69 - 3.7
1970-74 - 4.1
1975-79 - 3.7
1980-84 - 5.4
1985-89 - 4.5
1990-94 - 4.9
1995-99 - 4.8
2000-04 - 5.3
2005-09 - 4.1
2010-14 - 3.0

The figures towards the end of that list are inevitably less accurate, for there are drivers still active who made their debut as early as 2001. But even so there's no indication that grand prix careers are getting any longer in the 21st century, it's just that the increase in the number of races is skewing the figures, as shown by the rise in the record for most starts.

Juan Manuel Fangio was the first meaningful holder of that record, making his 51st start at the 1958 French Grand Prix. Trintignant broke it at Zandvoort in '59, eventually extending his figure to 82 on his final start in the '66 Italian Grand Prix.

That allowed Jack Brabham to take the honour, in 1969/70 trading the record several times with Graham Hill before the latter took sole ownership from the '71 Monaco GP. When he infamously failed to qualify in Monaco in '75, Hill was attempting to make the grid for the 177th time.

It's often forgotten that Jacques Laffite actually equalled Hill's record at the 1986 British Grand Prix - only for his grand prix career to end when he was caught up in a massive accident on the approach to the first corner.

When Riccardo Patrese broke that record, starting his 177th race at the 1989 Brazilian GP (eventually rising to 256 at the end of an F1 career stretching from 1977 to '93), the number seemed so high as to be unbreakable.

Of course, it was broken. In 2008 Rubens Barrichello made his 257th start, ultimately extending the record to 322 at the time of his last race in '11.

If Max Verstappen, who turns 19 next week and already has 34 starts under his belt, matches Barrichello and races on into his 40th year, assuming an average of 21 races a year he will notch up 469 GPs!

There are suggestions that the number of races in a year could yet rise, so perhaps we may even see drivers racking up NASCAR-esque numbers. The record for top-flight NASCAR starts is held by Richard Petty with 1185, and even in the modern era the temporarily unretired Jeff Gordon - the most prolific of those currently active - has made 803 starts.

So while the numbers might go up, it would be wrong to say careers are going on longer than they used to - or indeed for too long, given that those with a long shelf-life are, for the most part, effective performers.

While the old dangers of serious injury or death are now thankfully very rare, the average driver simply isn't hanging around any more than they used to.

As the old saying goes, it's difficult to get into F1 and even harder to stay there. Remember that if you find yourself moaning about it being 'too easy' simply to hit landmark numbers of starts, perhaps reflect a little on just what a driver like Button has had to do to make his triple century.

Statistics supplied by Joao Paulo Cunha of FORIX