Most double-figure race winners in an F1 field?

[Paul Hayes]

With Jenson Button securing his tenth career Grand Prix win on Sunday to join the double-figures club, it struck me that we have a fair few double-figure race winners in the field this season - Schumacher, Alonso, Hamilton, Vettel, Massa, Barrichello and now the aforementioned Mr Button. I don't think I've missed anyone...?

But in one of those random, pointless F1 questions that sometimes occur to you, I got to wondering - when did F1 have the largest number of double-figure race winners in its ranks? Is there one particular race that saw the most of them start, or have there been a few?

I'd be interested to find out, should anyone know!

[eagleash]

Yep....if you want to know something let someone else do the research for you.....

[Phoenix]

I'm not going to conduct a research. I'll say, from the top of my head, it was in 1991, with Senna, Prost, Mansell and Piquet.

[ibsey]

I believe, a couple of years ago, Brazil 1982 used to be highlighted as the race with the most race winners to start in it. Whether that is still the case today or indeed answers your question I can't confirm.

[Myrvold]

Yep....if you want to know something let someone else do the research for you.....

Ofc, Just as Tom Lehrer would've said it!

I am never forget the day I first meet the great Lobachevsky.
In one word he told me secret of success in mathematics:
Plagiarize!

Plagiarize,
Let no one else's work evade your eyes,
Remember why the good Lord made your eyes,
So don't shade your eyes,
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize -
Only be sure always to call it please 'research'.

And ever since I meet this man
My life is not the same,
And Nicolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky is his name.
Hi!
Nicolai Ivanovich Lobach-

I am never forget the day I am given first original paper
to write. It was on analytic and algebraic topology of
locally Euclidean parameterization of infinitely differentiable
Riemannian manifold.
Bozhe moi!
This I know from nothing.
What-i'm going-to do.
But I think of great Lobachevsky and get idea - ahah!

I have a friend in Minsk,
Who has a friend in Pinsk,
Whose friend in Omsk
Has friend in Tomsk
With friend in Akmolinsk.
His friend in Alexandrovsk
Has friend in Petropavlovsk,
Whose friend somehow
Is solving now
The problem in Dnepropetrovsk.

And when his work is done -
Ha ha! - begins the fun.
From Dnepropetrovsk
To Petropavlovsk,
By way of Iliysk,
And Novorossiysk,
To Alexandrovsk to Akmolinsk
To Tomsk to Omsk
To Pinsk to Minsk
To me the news will run,
Yes, to me the news will run!

And then I write
By morning, night,
And afternoon,
And pretty soon
My name in Dnepropetrovsk is cursed,
When he finds out I publish first!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQHaGhC7C2E

Good old comedy

[Phoenix]

I believe, a couple of years ago, Brazil 1982 used to be highlighted as the race with the most race winners to start in it. Whether that is still the case today or indeed answers your question I can't confirm.

He's looking for the biggest number of entrants that had won 10 or more F1 races.

[Paul Hayes]

It was just a random question, I wasn't seriously expecting anybody to conduct in-depth research on my behalf! Just idle curiosity, I thought someone might know, it's the sort of stat someone might have looked up before. Apologies if I have caused any offence, it certainly wasn't my intention.

[Paul Hayes]

I'm not going to conduct a research. I'll say, from the top of my head, it was in 1991, with Senna, Prost, Mansell and Piquet.

But there are only those four, as far as I can see, in 1991. We already have seven this year.

I shall have a look into it myself, as has been suggested in this thread!

[Paul Hayes]

Thank you for prompting me to go and do the homework myself - it was quite interesting, and didn't take nearly as long as I had imagined!

We do indeed have more 10+ winners in the current F1 field than there has ever been at any other point in the championship's history. Which is nice!

[DanielPT]

It is amazing how many wins Stirling Moss had without a championship victory in those days. Still the best driver in F1 never to win a championship!

[David AGS]

It is amazing how many wins Stirling Moss had without a championship victory in those days. Still the best driver in F1 never to win a championship!

I was also doing some research, and found out that Keke Rosberg, who won just 5 races ended up being World Champion in 1982, by winning 1 race that season!

BTW back to the research, I thought of 1985 straight away, with Piquet, Lauda and Rosberg, but the Finn just had 5 wins so dont count, a 'sneaky' would have been Alan Jones who raced 2-3 races with Lola

1991 was close too, Prost, Senna, Mansell, Piquet. They dont count, but Hakkinen and M.Schu made their debut that year as well.

[Klon]

It is amazing how many wins Stirling Moss had without a championship victory in those days. Still the best driver in F1 never to win a championship!

I was also doing some research, and found out that Keke Rosberg, who won just 5 races ended up being World Champion in 1982, by winning 1 race that season!

Just like Mike Hawthorn did. He only won three races in total, though. Talk about doing more with less.

Well, it's not a surprise we have most of them now. When there are more races, you can win more, i.e. we get more 10 time winners.

[DanielPT]

It is amazing how many wins Stirling Moss had without a championship victory in those days. Still the best driver in F1 never to win a championship!

I was also doing some research, and found out that Keke Rosberg, who won just 5 races ended up being World Champion in 1982, by winning 1 race that season!

Just like Mike Hawthorn did. He only won three races in total, though. Talk about doing more with less.

Well, it's not a surprise we have most of them now. When there are more races, you can win more, i.e. we get more 10 time winners.

Still a year is a year and we have 5 world champions on the grid which I think is a record... (Yes I know, careers spawn longer in average, but even so...)

[Revelo89]

Have to admit, the last few years have seen an increase in the quality of racing as well I feel, not sure if it is related to how many successful drivers there are in the field, but as I'd argue the 80's and early 90's was F1's zenith i'd say I'm rather enjoying what we are getting at the moment, we just need to reduce the amount of Tilke tracks being used...

[Klon]

Still a year is a year and we have 5 world champions on the grid which I think is a record... (Yes I know, careers spawn longer in average, but even so...)

Not saying that it isn't neat. Just anaylising the cause. Because I like analysing the cause.

[Ferrim]

I think having more races is a cause, but not the only one. Schumacher and Barrichello "shouldn't" be still racing at this point, that would bring it down to 5 drivers. Extremely long careers spanning 16 complete seasons for the German and 18 for the Brazilian. So longer careers are a factor.

Another cause is how much more spread are the wins these days. If you look at the table you'll find that the four drivers with most wins to their names are consecutively listed, and are preceeded and followed by other guys who also won a lot of races. This is not completely conclusive in itself, but it shows that only Piquet, Prost, Mansell, Senna, Schumacher and Hill arrived to 10 career wins between 1981 and 1996, while all of them clearly surpassed that mark. In other words, that means six drivers shared a vast majority of the wins for fifteen years!

And now look at what's happened between 1996 and now (another 15-year period): forgetting about Berger who scored all but one of his wins before, 10 drivers instead of 6 have managed to win 10 or more races. This looks better, but it becomes really impressive when you realize that the period includes most of the wins by Schumacher (without checking, it must be over 60), and every Schumacher win was a race no other driver could win.

So I must say that, in spite of everything, it's very likely that 20 years from now we will look at our current days as a golden era. I hadn't realized until now how unlikely it is that no one (apart from Schumacher) has managed to overcome Mansell's wins total (let alone Senna's or Prost's) after 17 years, when seasons are now longer than ever. Part of the reason is the Schumacher domination of the early 00s, but even then he hasn't been dominating since 2004 and that was seven years ago.

BTW, Stewart held the record of most races won for nearly 20 years (the longest anyone has) and it's still impressive even now. He was competing for only 9 years, when seasons were quite shorter than now, but still no one of the current F1 drivers has managed to win as many races as he did.

[Benetton]

Some win/grand prix appearances ratios...

Juan Manuel Fangio 46,15 %
Alberto Ascari 39,39 %
Michael Schumacher 32,97 %
Ayrton Senna 25,31 %
Alain Prost 25,25 %
Stirling Moss 23,88 %
Sebastian Vettel 21,74 %
Lewis Hamilton 19,23 %
Damon Hill 18,03 %
Nigel Mansell 16,23 %
Fernando Alonso 15,66 %
Mika Hakkinen 12,12 %
Kimi Raikkonen 11,46 %
Felipe Massa 7,75 %
Juan Pablo Montoya 7,37 %
David Coulthard 5,26 %
Jenson Button 5,05 %
Keke Rosberg 3,91 %
Rubens Barrichello 3,50 %
Ralf Schumacher 3,30 %
Johnny Herbert 1,82 %
Giancarlo Fisichella 1,30 %