Formula 1 coverage is swamped by all manner of wonderful statistics, but one that hasn’t been given a significant amount of airtime was the significance of Max Verstappen’s 17th grand prix win. It earned him a significant record, albeit one that he’s almost certain to lose to Stirling Moss.
Once you break a record, it’s unusual to have it reclaimed by a driver whose grand prix career ended six decades ago. In this case, it’s perhaps more accurate to say that Verstappen will hand it back to Moss – and very gladly. For Verstappen now has the most world championship race wins of any driver who has not won a world championship.
All of the 16 drivers ahead of Verstappen in the wins list won at least one title. It’s almost inconceivable that Verstappen won’t win multiple world championships and there’s every chance he will only hold this record for three months given his stellar form in 2021. It seems only a matter of time.
The late, great Moss and Verstappen don’t appear to have a great deal in common beyond their capacity to drive racing cars incredibly quickly. But there are similarities.
Verstappen has toiled away in previous years in machinery that could win on its day but wasn’t quite up to a championship campaign. While Moss had multiple championship bids as he racked up his 16 wins (in 66 starts, compared to Verstappen’s 132), he was often the underdog.
Of the seven times he finished either second or third in the world championship, only two of them were with factory teams. The first in 1955 as Juan Manuel Fangio’s Mercedes wingman, the second with Maserati in 1956. But thereafter, it was largely in Vanwall machinery, which was strong in 1957 and won the inaugural constructors’ championship, or customer cars run by the legendary Rob Walker Racing.
Sometimes there was a key weakness, such as the fragile Colotti gearbox in his Cooper T51 that meant he didn’t have the reliability to beat works driver Jack Brabham in 1959 despite being quicker. But other times, it was just plain bad luck – or, famously, his own honest conduct.
Beyond that, comparisons are difficult but both proved their excellence without winning the world championship. When Verstappen wins his first title, it will be the confirmation rather than the proof of his brilliance. As for Moss, it makes no difference whether he has zero, three or five world championships – he is one of the greats.
That Moss’s record is so absurd is proved by how regularly he loses this record before regaining it. Prior to Verstappen, Nico Rosberg was the most recent holder, taking the record with his 17th win in China 2016 and extending it to 23 victories before handing it back when he sealed his sole title before retiring at the end of 2016.
But that’s not the highest mark the record has ever got to. In 1992, Nigel Mansell got the mark up to an astonishing 29 victories before sealing his only world championship in the 1992 Hungarian Grand Prix.
In between Mansell and Rosberg, Damon Hill briefly held the record in 1996, only relinquishing it when his 21st victory in Japan gave him the title.
The only other driver ever to take the record was Alain Prost, who was a 21-time winner before clinching his first world championship in 1985.
A record like this is largely circumstantial, so it would be ludicrous to read too much into it. But perhaps ominously for Lewis Hamilton (who won nine races before his first title in 2008), this is a record that points to imminent title glory.
Few doubt Verstappen will be a world champion, so it’s a question of when rather than if. And on the current trajectory, there’s every chance the answer to when will be Abu Dhabi on December.12.
