The World Champions - Who was the best?

Formula 1 has so far produced 33 world champions. The most successful is still Schumacher. The question of the best of all time comes up again and again.

It is the question for which sport was first invented: who is the best of them all? In no sport is the question as difficult to answer as in motorsport. Because not only man, but also the machine plays a decisive role here. At Fernando Alonso, we've seen in recent years that even one of the best drivers in a bad car is just behind.

If you are currently the best driver in Formula One, it's hard to answer. But the question of the best of times is virtually impossible. It is difficult to gauge how the teenagers who conquer Formula One today would have cut off with the Stone Age F1 racers of the 1950s - without power steering, without safety features and rudimentary technology, driven by established men around the age of 40. Hairy wheel-to-wheel duels, which are a feature of Max Verstappen, for example, would have been impossible at the time. And it's unpredictable how the great hero of the fifties, Juan-Manuel Fangio, would have cut himself off in a modern racing car, where the sheer feeling for the car does not make as much difference as the strategic reading of the race and the state-of-the-art race car.

A total of 761 riders in Formula One scored 339 points, 208 podiums, 109 victories and only 33 World Championship titles (4.34 percent of the F1 drivers). For 17, the World Cup crown was a one-off affair, only six were able to repeat this success, five made it three times, two every four and five times, Michael Schumacher even fabulous seven times.

Schumi record wobbles

If Mercedes has the best car by the end of 2020, Hamilton will have caught up with Schumi. But if Mercedes is outflanked by Ferrari or Red Bull, Hamilton remains at five titles. Whether the Briton has five or seven titles in his pocket in 2020 does not necessarily have anything to do with the driving quality of the British.

Today, it's hard to win a world title as seldom before, but at the same time as easy as never to get several consecutive. Since the beginning of the millennium, ie for 19 years, we have already experienced three eras in which teams dominated Formula One for years - from 2000 to 2004 Ferrari with Michael Schumacher, from 2010 to 2014 Red Bull with Sebastian Vettel and since 2014 Mercedes with Nico Rosberg, but especially Lewis Hamilton. For comparison: From 1962 to 1985, no driver could defend his title. And only twice did the same team champion for two consecutive years. Again and again, the racing teams took turns at the top. There were no state-of-the-art computer and simulation programs, no teams with hundreds and half a billion dollars budget. Decisive were ideas of individual ingenious technicians. Everybody once had the chance to reach for the crown. Today a driver has to sit in the right car, otherwise, he will be out of the World Championship race for years. If he has such a cockpit, it is easy not only to take the World Cup trophy home once.

Hamilton is five times world champion because he has been riding in the best team for years. Fangio became world champion five times sixty years ago because he joined the team that conquered the top each year. It is impossible to say what weighs higher. Fangio not only drove against many opponents but also against death. Hamilton drives in a field that has never been so good in driving width. When Vettel became World Champion for the third time in 2012, five other champions rode with him - never before and never again.

After all, there are individual drivers who shaped their epochs. Drivers who have ushered in a new era in Formula One. That was the jaunty Jim Clark in the '60s, that was the analytical Niki Lauda in the' 70s, the calculating Alain Prost in the '80s, the natural talent Ayrton Senna in the' 90s or the strong-willed Michael Schumacher in the '70s. Who is the best? Who knows...

The drivers themselves never really answer this question. For Senna Fangio was always the hero, for Schumacher always Senna. But Senna also knew, "Eventually someone will come who will erase all my records and records. As well as I was better than a racing driver in front of me. "That was Schumacher and Schumacher threatened now with Hamilton.