Jim Clark
Sebastian Vettel
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Sebastian Vettel leads 3 of 4 categories. Our all-time ranking places Jim Clark at #7 and Sebastian Vettel at #10.
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The case for Jim Clark
Clark's rate stats are second only to Fangio's among champions: 25 wins and 33 poles from just 72 starts — winning more than a third of every Grand Prix he entered — with two titles, 1963 and 1965, both sealed with crushing superiority. He still holds the record for grand chelems (pole, win, fastest lap, every lap led) with eight. His versatility has no modern equivalent: in 1965 he won the Formula 1 world championship and the Indianapolis 500 in the same summer, and he won in touring cars, sports cars and Formula 2 almost casually. Contemporaries considered the gap behind him unbridgeable — when conditions were equal, Clark simply drove away, as at Spa 1963, won by nearly five minutes in the rain. He died at Hockenheim in April 1968 in a minor Formula 2 race, aged 32, almost certainly with multiple championships left in him. On pure driving, many period observers rated him the best ever.
The case for Sebastian Vettel
Four consecutive world titles from 2010 to 2013, 53 wins, 57 poles and 122 podiums. Vettel became the youngest champion in history at 23 years and 134 days, and his 2011 and 2013 seasons rank among the most complete ever driven — 15 poles in 2011, and in 2013 a run of nine straight wins to close the year, still the record. His mastery of the exhaust-blown-diffuser Red Bulls was genuinely singular: the technique of keeping the throttle open to energise the diffuser mid-corner suited him better than anyone, including teammate Mark Webber, whom he out-scored comprehensively across their partnership. The case against is the second act: the Ferrari years brought 14 wins but title collapses in 2017 and 2018 under pressure from Hamilton, including the decisive Hockenheim crash from the lead in the rain. His first win — Monza 2008 in a Toro Rosso, from pole, in the wet — remains one of the sport's great underdog results.