Juan Manuel Fangio
Sebastian Vettel
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Dead even across the measured categories. Our all-time ranking places Juan Manuel Fangio at #3 and Sebastian Vettel at #10.
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The case for Juan Manuel Fangio
Fangio's numbers look small until you convert them to rates, at which point they become absurd: 24 wins from 52 championship entries, a strike rate around 46 percent that no driver since has approached, plus 29 poles and five titles in the championship's first nine seasons. He won those five championships with four different constructors — Alfa Romeo, Mercedes, Ferrari, Maserati — proving the results travelled with the man, and he did it in an era when cars killed their drivers routinely and Fangio himself broke his neck at Monza in 1952. His masterpiece is the 1957 German Grand Prix: 46 years old, hunting down the Ferraris of Hawthorn and Collins after a disastrous pit stop, breaking the Nurburgring lap record repeatedly, winning by three seconds. He retired at 47, still the best driver alive. Adjusted for era and risk, a legitimate case exists that he is number one; he sits third only because the fields he beat were shallower.
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.