Greatest Formula 1 driver

[deSiRiuS]

Here are some links:

https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/news/nr/gre ... r-1.567358
http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/sport/mo ... -1-7850711

[lamo]

Senna not even worth a mention?

[Flash2k11]

Hilarious list. Christian Fittipaldi in 11th while Lauda doesn't even make the top 50 (142nd I think?)

Edit: top 50 image, ive nicked the SS from an autosport post (think that counts as a source <_<)

http://i.imgur.com/oXfu9XF.png

[Asphalt_World]

Nick Heidfeld 23rd. I think I'll stop reading it now.

[Asphalt_World]

And where's Mika or have I missed him?

[Flash2k11]

And where's Mika or have I missed him?

Out of the top 50 too.

[aice]

Senna not even worth a mention?

My sentiments exactly!

[Amon]

The one making up that list must be fond of Schumi why else does he make 2 different drivers of him, pre-2006 and post 2010?
If that is correct he must have done that for every driver making a come back: Niki Lauda, Kimi Raikkonen ... Otherwise his system is flawed. Or maybe he was scared Schumi would end up much lower since he got outscored every single season by Nico Rosberg.

And as silly as that list might be, look at this one from 2 years ago:

• https://f1metrics.wordpress.com/2014/07 ... f1-driver/

I'm not sure which member used to promote this website but he was pretty cross when anyone would question the method.

[Jezza13]

The one making up that list must be fond of Schumi why else does he make 2 different drivers of him, pre-2006 and post 2010?
If that is correct he must have done that for every driver making a come back: Niki Lauda, Kimi Raikkonen ... Otherwise his system is flawed. Or maybe he was scared Schumi would end up much lower since he got outscored every single season by Nico Rosberg.
.

Was thinking this myself. Throw Alan Jones in there as well

[Exediron]

And as silly as that list might be, look at this one from 2 years ago:

• https://f1metrics.wordpress.com/2014/07 ... f1-driver/

I'm not sure which member used to promote this website but he was pretty cross when anyone would question the method.

While I did get sick of the member you mention bringing it up as gospel at every opportunity (and I do remember who it is), I think the F1Metrics list generally jives much better with my perception than the study-produced result in the OP. Senna and Prost are probably too low, but otherwise most of the results at least have some believably and aren't discredited immediately by teammate comparisons, whereas a quick scan down the top 50 of the Sheffield Methods list produces a few headscratchers:

#2 / #5: I love Prost, but ranking him more than a place above Senna is dubious.
#1 / #29: Putting Moss so many places below Fangio is also not very supportable, let alone putting him in 29th under any circumstances.
#12 / #16 / #49: Based on any sort of hard data, the progression of Hamilton / Button / Rosberg is questionable at best.

Those are just the ones that stand out to me the most as being contradicted by actual teammate comparisons - there are definitely others that don't feel right to me.

[deSiRiuS]

Yep, it depends on what method they implemented to get those statistics. I will try to get the paper to know more about it.
Interesting link amon.

[Remmirath]

It's interesting, to be sure, but a lot of the placements look kind of strange. I do wonder what methods they implemented; certainly it could be correct based upon some specific variables, but I have my doubts about it being much good concerning overall driver performance. As pointed out, several drivers seem to be out of place to a degree that it's hard to back up considering how well they appear to have raced.

The other list is also interesting, and doesn't present as many head-scratchers -- at least, to me, it's a much more believable ranking. Not that I would trust it completely either, but I'd be a lot less dubious of using it to support an arguement (although, mind, still somewhat dubious).

If nothing else, that must have been an enjoyable research project.

[Lotus49]

I believe this list is from the same person or persons involved with f1metrics. (at least that's what I read).

[hittheapex]

They have obviously gone to great lengths to develop a complex model. The summary even mentions the importance of teams versus driver ability on street circuits compared to the rest.

It also states that driver performance against team mates is a factor. Which makes sense to me, except that Christian Fittipaldi is 11th. Yes he had mediocre cars, but his team mates were Gianni Morbidelli and Pierluigi Martini. Meanwhile, Niki Lauda outside the top 100. Even more damning, Frentzen placed ahead of Jacques Villeneuve. I imagine this is consistent with the model, but the model seems flawed.

[Exediron]

I believe this list is from the same person or persons involved with f1metrics. (at least that's what I read).

I'd be surprised if that's true - there are several radical differences among the top drivers. Although Hamilton by coincidence is in the same place on both lists, practically everybody else is different; for example Lauda made F1Metrics' top 10, whereas he missed the top 100 for the Sheffield list.

[Covalent]

Here are some links:

Well said.

[stitch512]

#2 / #5: I love Prost, but ranking him more than a place above Senna is dubious.

Its not crazy to place Prost above Senna. Prost beat so many world champions in his career while in the same teams. No driver since Prost '89 has won a WC with a WC team mate.

[lamo]

#2 / #5: I love Prost, but ranking him more than a place above Senna is dubious.

Its not crazy to place Prost above Senna. Prost beat so many world champions in his career while in the same teams. No driver since Prost '89 has won a WC with a WC team mate.

True, no driver has also won a title when in the races they both finished they lost as heavily as 9-1 to there team mate. Again Prost 1989 or won 2 races less than there team mate and still won the title. Or won only 4 races and won the title, 3 of which their team mate retired in front of them and the other he got taken out on lap 1. 1989 was not a good year for Prost, probably his worst. But he did win the title.

The person who built this data model, the first thing they should have done when they got the results was implement something into it to remove Christian Fittapaldi, because whilst all the other results could be argued to an extent, that one is just ridiculous.

[IDrinkYourMilkshake]

#2 / #5: I love Prost, but ranking him more than a place above Senna is dubious.

Its not crazy to place Prost above Senna. Prost beat so many world champions in his career while in the same teams. No driver since Prost '89 has won a WC with a WC team mate.

True, no driver has also won a title when in the races they both finished they lost as heavily as 9-1 to there team mate. Again Prost 1989 or won 2 races less than there team mate and still won the title. Or won only 4 races and won the title, 3 of which their team mate retired in front of them and the other he got taken out on lap 1. 1989 was not a good year for Prost, probably his worst. But he did win the title.

The person who built this data model, the first thing they should have done when they got the results was implement something into it to remove Christian Fittapaldi, because whilst all the other results could be argued to an extent, that one is just ridiculous.

You need more than Wikipedia stats to see 1989. While I'm not saying Prost was significantly better or worse than Senna, it's a fact that speedwise, Senna and Prost were not driving the same cars in 1989. Senna had a much faster car, with experimental Honda parts, which either went much faster, or burst. Prost didn't suddenly decline after 1988.

[Zoue]

#2 / #5: I love Prost, but ranking him more than a place above Senna is dubious.

Its not crazy to place Prost above Senna. Prost beat so many world champions in his career while in the same teams. No driver since Prost '89 has won a WC with a WC team mate.

I think the observation was not so much that it was wrong to place Prost above Senna, but more that placing Prost more than one place above him was dubious.

[Lt. Drebin]

#2 / #5: I love Prost, but ranking him more than a place above Senna is dubious.

Its not crazy to place Prost above Senna. Prost beat so many world champions in his career while in the same teams. No driver since Prost '89 has won a WC with a WC team mate.

True, no driver has also won a title when in the races they both finished they lost as heavily as 9-1 to there team mate. Again Prost 1989 or won 2 races less than there team mate and still won the title. Or won only 4 races and won the title, 3 of which their team mate retired in front of them and the other he got taken out on lap 1. 1989 was not a good year for Prost, probably his worst. But he did win the title.

The person who built this data model, the first thing they should have done when they got the results was implement something into it to remove Christian Fittapaldi, because whilst all the other results could be argued to an extent, that one is just ridiculous.

You need more than Wikipedia stats to see 1989. While I'm not saying Prost was significantly better or worse than Senna, it's a fact that speedwise, Senna and Prost were not driving the same cars in 1989. Senna had a much faster car, with experimental Honda parts, which either went much faster, or burst. Prost didn't suddenly decline after 1988.

Senna paid the price price of his driving style, all-or-nothing, thus breaking the car more often than Prost. Prost was more clever driver, hence called Professor. It is indeed no strange thing to put Prost above Senna, depending on which quality you value, since Senna mostly had marginal speed advantage (at times, at the cost of reliability), and Prost had about all other things on his side, beating the Senna at times with sheer speed. But the fact is; at the end of seasons when they drove the same car, Prost always had more points than Senna. Was it not for the strange rules, Prost would have been WDC in 1988, based on points.

[Zoue]

#2 / #5: I love Prost, but ranking him more than a place above Senna is dubious.

Its not crazy to place Prost above Senna. Prost beat so many world champions in his career while in the same teams. No driver since Prost '89 has won a WC with a WC team mate.

True, no driver has also won a title when in the races they both finished they lost as heavily as 9-1 to there team mate. Again Prost 1989 or won 2 races less than there team mate and still won the title. Or won only 4 races and won the title, 3 of which their team mate retired in front of them and the other he got taken out on lap 1. 1989 was not a good year for Prost, probably his worst. But he did win the title.

The person who built this data model, the first thing they should have done when they got the results was implement something into it to remove Christian Fittapaldi, because whilst all the other results could be argued to an extent, that one is just ridiculous.

You need more than Wikipedia stats to see 1989. While I'm not saying Prost was significantly better or worse than Senna, it's a fact that speedwise, Senna and Prost were not driving the same cars in 1989. Senna had a much faster car, with experimental Honda parts, which either went much faster, or burst. Prost didn't suddenly decline after 1988.

Senna paid the price price of his driving style, all-or-nothing, thus breaking the car more often than Prost. Prost was more clever driver, hence called Professor. It is indeed no strange thing to put Prost above Senna, depending on which quality you value, since Senna mostly had marginal speed advantage (at times, at the cost of reliability), and Prost had about all other things on his side, beating the Senna at times with sheer speed. But the fact is; at the end of seasons when they drove the same car, Prost always had more points than Senna. Was it not for the strange rules, Prost would have been WDC in 1988, based on points.

This is simply not true. Both Prost and Senna were fully aware of the rules and drove accordingly. They encouraged a driver to go for wins and be less cautious, since only the best results counted. If that rule system hadn't been in place it's impossible to say with any certainty that all the drivers would have approached each race exactly the same way.

[Lt. Drebin]

Of course, rules were the same for everyone. But, don't think that the rule is a bit strange and unfair?

[F1 MERCENARY]

I disagree with this. For me it's Schumacher, then Prost, then possibly Senna but his ranking is and will always fluctuate because although he had supreme ability, he wasn't always clean and had no qualms with bullying his way.

The fact that Schumacher had great cars is in great part due to his ability and technical feedback to his engineers and teams and it's ironic how people always seem to forget how the Prancing Horse floundered about in the midfield for DECADES before he came aboard which is directly in tune with how The United Colors and later Mercedes evolved into top contenders in a fairly identical time frame. That would have to be the greatest coinkidink in the history of the sport. Yes the engineering and technical staff played a huge role but if you've followed the sport and their careers long enough you'd know they've all said Michael was a phenom in that it almost didn't matter what the car was lacking because he somehow managed to figure out how to drive around the flaws and maintain and even improve lap times. Fangio was an amazing driver, as were all the drivers in these rankings, but I don't know of any who had this ability.

While Senna took driver fitness to a whole other level, Michael took the entire profession even further. He decided to live in isolation for lengthy periods of time so he could be on track at the crack of dawn to run thousands of laps honing and refining his skills & reflexes and figuring out how to overcome issues that may present themselves during races. And boy did it show. Yes some of his cars were the best overall machines, but most weren't and it was Michael who made the difference. All you need to do is go back and compare teammates results (outside a few seasons with Rubens) to see how some of his cars were nowhere near as fast unless in his hands.

Senna was the precursor to the dedication that Michael would grow into but Michael took it to new heights and today's top drivers tend to follow his example. Prost was just amazing in how complete a driver he was and he knew how to extract enough of himself and the car just enough to maximize his efforts to almost always be the best on track.

And while Fangio came out on top, outside of Schumacher and Senna, pound for pound, the guy with the most natural ability who made it look easy was Jim Clark. He was usually so much better than everyone else they'd ask him how he could run such fast laps and on occasion he'd tell them to follow him on track and take lines as he did and no matter how hard they tried, they simply couldn't do what he was doing.

The one Grand Prix driver who seems to almost always be forgotten, partly due to him competing before the advent of "F1" was Nuvolari. I'd venture to say had he and Fangio raced at their peak at the same time, Fangio would more than likely not have as many wins on his record, likely less than Nuvolari.

For me it would be

1. Schumacher
2. Nuvolari
3. Fangio
4. Prost
5. Ascari
6. Clark
7. Senna
8. Alonso, Hamilton, Vettel (no particular order but these guys are so exceedingly great they will undoubtedly be on these lists and possibly move way up on it)


The one thing to consider with Ascari, Nuvolari and Fangio is that these guys drove humongous cars that were generally off the assembly ,one cars with some refinements, but weighed TONS, on motorcycle-esk tires, with zero safety features, on not so well prepped tracks. That is mighty impressive in anyone's book.

[mikeyg123]

Greatest formula 1 drivers -

1. Schumacher
2. Fangio
3. Senna
4. Clark
5. Prost
6. Stewart
7. Alonso
8. Ascari
9. Moss
10. Lauda

Both Hamilton and Vettel would be joust outside the top 10 - Possibly 11th and 12th.

[POBRatings]

Anyone who ranks drivers lineally will get into trouble with their list! Remember the criticism Alan Henry's list drew in 1999?

I think both the studies mentioned here above were done by people who were primarily mathematcians/statisticians. It seems they let their mathematical models rule.
Senna being low ranked shows a lack of common sense: In every way Senna just has to have been one of the greatest of all time.

F1 enthusiast-fans here spot such basic errors immediately.

[lamo]

Of course, rules were the same for everyone. But, don't think that the rule is a bit strange and unfair?

Unfair? Why? I've always thought this the fairest system, allowing drivers to drop some races to cover for bad luck.

Alain had a great chance to win the title in 1988, he knew whoever won the most races out of him and Senna would be champion. He said those exact words during an interview after 3 races during the season.

Why did Prost not win the title, look at his mid season run.

2 - 2 - 1 - RET - 2 - 2 - 2 - RET (from 2nd)

He won 1 race in 8, in a 16 championship.

To answer the question someone said above about Prost didn't become a bad driver over night from 1988, well look at his 88 form. His wins

Brazil - Senna disqualified after taking T-car when his race car failed
Monaco - Senna puts it into the wall when over 30 seconds in the lead in the closing stages
Mexico - Senna had an issue with his pop off valve
France - Close race, Senna took the lead but then develop a gearbox problem and Prost won
Portugal - Senna has a fuel read out problem all race and told to drive much slower
Spain - Senna has a fuel read out problem all race and told to drive much slower
Australia - Senna had a race long gearbox problem

Every time Prost beat Senna in 88/89 it was linked to reliability or Senna's mistake in Monaco being 1 of those 7 wins. Sure Prost had his reliability issues too, quite a few but when neither had Problems Senna won. When Senna had problem he was ahead, when Prost had problems he was behind.

As for Senna being a lot harder of the machinery, Prost actually had more mechanical DNFs than Senna in 1988 and it was pretty equal overall in 1988. For 1989 Senna suffered horribly, whilst Prost not so much so. Prost was never really ever close to Senna, Rosberg has been a lot lot closer in 2014 and 2015 to Hamilton than Prost ever was to Senna.

In 1988 Senna suffered a little by trying to humiliate Prost, Monaco for example. Prost was no where near Senna's league. This was all before car and driver were weighed together too, so Senna did it all carrying an extra 8-10 kgs as well.

[lamo]

#2 / #5: I love Prost, but ranking him more than a place above Senna is dubious.

Its not crazy to place Prost above Senna. Prost beat so many world champions in his career while in the same teams. No driver since Prost '89 has won a WC with a WC team mate.

True, no driver has also won a title when in the races they both finished they lost as heavily as 9-1 to there team mate. Again Prost 1989 or won 2 races less than there team mate and still won the title. Or won only 4 races and won the title, 3 of which their team mate retired in front of them and the other he got taken out on lap 1. 1989 was not a good year for Prost, probably his worst. But he did win the title.

The person who built this data model, the first thing they should have done when they got the results was implement something into it to remove Christian Fittapaldi, because whilst all the other results could be argued to an extent, that one is just ridiculous.

You need more than Wikipedia stats to see 1989. While I'm not saying Prost was significantly better or worse than Senna, it's a fact that speedwise, Senna and Prost were not driving the same cars in 1989. Senna had a much faster car, with experimental Honda parts, which either went much faster, or burst. Prost didn't suddenly decline after 1988.

I watched this season live and have re-watched every race at least 2-3 times. Last viewing just last year, so its all very fresh. What you state as a fact is also an opinion or refuted by Ron Dennis and others within Mclaren and Honda. Although I tend to agree, Prost was so far behind - something had to be going on - its certainly not a fact as you try to say.

Senna was way quicker in 1988 too, he just kept having issues handing wins to Prost - see the list I compiled above. Same thing happened to Hamilton in 2014, although Rosberg was actually pretty close to Lewis where as Prost was quite a way back, circ half a second slower than Senna in qualifying and race trim

[POBRatings]

The Sheffield University's study ranks Moss in 35th place. Reading race reports and what Moss did in slower cars as well as in top cars against such talented team-mates as Fangio and Brooks, shows Moss's will-to-win and sheer competitiveness were way above those of Button (14th) and his contemporary Ginther (26th).

Not to have Ascari in the top 50? Ferrari team-mate Hawthorn reckoned "Ascari was faster and smoother than Fangio". One only has to see how fast Ascari was in his part-time season 1954 in a Ferrari 625 at Monza, leading Fangio's Mercedes for a long way, and then setting pole in the brand new Lancia D50 at Barcelona a second faster than Fangio's Merc, to realise the high opinions of Ascari at the time were well-founded. In his GP/F1 career (1948-1958) Fangio reckoned "Ascari and Moss were my strongest rivals".

Another 'lacking in common sense' ranking: Fagioli in 41st place was 53 year's old and so much slower than team-mates Fangio and Farina. Every one of the 50 drivers on the Sheffield list would be much faster and better than Fagioli was in 1950-1951. Fagioli only scored good places in F1 because his Alfa Romeos were so much faster than their rival cars, plus scoring a shared win after Fangio took over his car.

I don't doubt that the rankings were decided by an impressive and complex set of stats/formulae. But to rank the drivers from 12th to 34th higher than/better than Moss makes one question the methodology as a means of driver assessment. Would Moss have let Rubens beat him in the latter half of the 2009 season as Jenson did? never. Nor would Ascari have.

[Lotus49]

I believe this list is from the same person or persons involved with f1metrics. (at least that's what I read).

I'd be surprised if that's true - there are several radical differences among the top drivers. Although Hamilton by coincidence is in the same place on both lists, practically everybody else is different; for example Lauda made F1Metrics' top 10, whereas he missed the top 100 for the Sheffield list.

Yeah I misunderstood the reference to Phillips 2014 in the paper and thought this was just a refined model with the help of some other guys but I checked and the name Phillips wasn't one of the authors of this model. My mistake.

[Lotus49]

Instead of calling it the greatest driver list it really should be called most important driver to a team or most valuable driver to a team or something like that.

It would generate a lot less heat from people expecting to see something similar to a most successful or famous driver list.

When your own study suggests drivers are six times less important than the cars they are driving when achieving success, they are going to throw up some strange results when trying to separate the car and driver which is the entire point of the model.

[eternalife]

Similar article in the daily mail:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... inner.html

Interesting results to say the least.

[steoc4]

So I agree with most of their rankings for current and recent drivers, which made me curious about Lauda. Having only been an avid supporter of F1 since around 1990 I was surprised by Lauda's ranking based on everything I've read or heard said about him, but not knowing much about his career in detail, outside of the obvious title victories, the accident, his return for retirement etc.

Looking at his actual stats I find he only outscored his team-mate in 6 out of 13 seasons - that's a less than 50% success rate in beating his team-mate - and in individual races he also finished behind his team-mate more often than not across his career. Looking at that I can easily see why a statistical model that tries to rule out the impact of the car would rank him so lowly.

[Flash2k11]

So I agree with most of their rankings for current and recent drivers, which made me curious about Lauda. Having only been an avid supporter of F1 since around 1990 I was surprised by Lauda's ranking based on everything I've read or heard said about him, but not knowing much about his career in detail, outside of the obvious title victories, the accident, his return for retirement etc.

Looking at his actual stats I find he only outscored his team-mate in 6 out of 13 seasons - that's a less than 50% success rate in beating his team-mate - and in individual races he also finished behind his team-mate more often than not across his career. Looking at that I can easily see why a statistical model that tries to rule out the impact of the car would rank him so lowly.

...which is precisely why trying to rank the drivers based purely on stats is akin to pi$$ing in the wind, might feel good but you end up making a mess and looking a bit silly.

[rustyiesty]

I believe this list is from the same person or persons involved with f1metrics. (at least that's what I read).

I'd be surprised if that's true - there are several radical differences among the top drivers. Although Hamilton by coincidence is in the same place on both lists, practically everybody else is different; for example Lauda made F1Metrics' top 10, whereas he missed the top 100 for the Sheffield list.

Yeah I misunderstood the reference to Phillips 2014 in the paper and thought this was just a refined model with the help of some other guys but I checked and the name Phillips wasn't one of the authors of this model. My mistake.

Dr. Phillips is planning a comparison post at his website, which will assess the three published statistical models (Stadelmann 2009, Phillips 2014, Bell 2016). In this model, the main drawback is that DNFs are treated more like a low finishing position, rather than discounted.

This is primarily why greats like Ascari, Lauda and Rindt are so low in the list or not mentioned at all. Rindt had a lot of car failures, but like Fangio in the 50s, whenever he seemed to finish, it was always in the top 4. Hence his infamous letter to Chapman about making the car stronger, as he would still win, even if it was a bit slower!

By contrast, drivers who were very good at getting the car to the finish in times of high unreliability are rewarded - hence the high placing of both Fittipaldis. I also happen to know that Dr. Phillips is interested in Patrick's Grand Prix Ratings system .

[Lotus49]

I believe this list is from the same person or persons involved with f1metrics. (at least that's what I read).

I'd be surprised if that's true - there are several radical differences among the top drivers. Although Hamilton by coincidence is in the same place on both lists, practically everybody else is different; for example Lauda made F1Metrics' top 10, whereas he missed the top 100 for the Sheffield list.

Yeah I misunderstood the reference to Phillips 2014 in the paper and thought this was just a refined model with the help of some other guys but I checked and the name Phillips wasn't one of the authors of this model. My mistake.

Dr. Phillips is planning a comparison post at his website, which will assess the three published statistical models (Stadelmann 2009, Phillips 2014, Bell 2016). In this model, the main drawback is that DNFs are treated more like a low finishing position, rather than discounted.

This is primarily why greats like Ascari, Lauda and Rindt are so low in the list or not mentioned at all. Rindt had a lot of car failures, but like Fangio in the 50s, whenever he seemed to finish, it was always in the top 4. Hence his infamous letter to Chapman about making the car stronger, as he would still win, even if it was a bit slower!

By contrast, drivers who were very good at getting the car to the finish in times of high unreliability are rewarded - hence the high placing of both Fittipaldis. I also happen to know that Dr. Phillips is interested in Patrick's Grand Prix Ratings system .

Sounds interesting, I'll keep a look out for it. If you could post a link here when it's up on his website it would be appreciated.

[POBRatings]

Rustiyesti, has Dr Phillips published his comparisons yet?

[Amon]

Of course, rules were the same for everyone. But, don't think that the rule is a bit strange and unfair?

Not so strange or unfiar if you know the X best results count were common for 40 F1 seasons!
Unfair is the current qualy format haha

[KingVoid]

I have noticed that Formula 1 fans are usually very conservative when discussing who is the greatest of their sport, by contrast football fans tend to be more liberal (although, I'm not sure if "liberal" is the right word to use).

On this thread, the usual five suspects that seemingly everyone puts in their top 5 are Senna, Prost, Schumacher, Clark and Fangio. They are seen as the eternal five greats of this sport. For many fans, the mere idea that drivers like Hamilton or Vettel could be better than them is considered blasphemy. Most F1 fans also don't think much of older generation drivers like Stewart or Ascari, two drivers who too can easily enter the discussion of all-time greats.

By contrast football fans are, by my experience, a lot more open minded. You can freely argue that Messi is better than Pele and Maradona were, and people will at least understand where you are coming from. You can also argue that other old players like Cruyff and Di Stefano were actually better than Maradona and Pele. Again, you won't be frowned upon. Football fans are generally far more open minded when discussing the GOAT as opposed to F1 fans.

[KingVoid]

Tier 1:

Fangio
Ascari
Clark
Stewart
Prost
Senna
Schumacher
Hamilton
Vettel

I really want to put Alonso on here too, but I put a lot of emphasis on statistics, and sadly Fernando has made too many unfortunate moves in his career.