5 Formula 1 Records that I believe will never be broken

5 Formula 1 Records that I believe will never be broken

As of the date of this article’s publication Lewis Hamilton only needs 5 more wins to surpass Michael Schumacher as Formula One’s All-Time winningest driver.  If you would have asked me about this record when I started watching Formula 1 four years ago, I would have told you that it was unbreakable, but yet here were are the cusp of history.  

That got me thinking what are some other records in Formula 1 that are less likely to be broken.  I looked through the Formula 1 record books, and I believe I there are at least 5 records in Formula 1 that will never ever be broken!

1.) Max Verstappen, Youngest Race Winner

Max Verstappen was the last of his kind.  His only major competition before making his debut in F1 came in the European Formula 3 series.  In just his 2nd season in Formula 1, Verstappen won the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix becoming the youngest winner in F1 at 18 years, 228 days.  Given the rigorous steps a driver has to go to get a FIA Super Licence, I say this record will most likely never be broken.  

A driver must be 18 now to hold a Super Licence.  Seeing as most drivers 18 and under still need to prove themselves in Formula 2 & Formula 3 before being approved for a Super Licence and often don’t make their debuts till age 19 at the earliest, a driver would have to win Championships from Formula 4 all the way to Formula 2 in consecutive years starting from the age of 14-15, in order to qualify for a Super Licence and even if they were still 18 at the time of their debut they’d have to win one of the first races they entered in Formula 1.


2.)  Ayrton Senna, most consecutive wins at the same Grand Prix

The late & great Ayrton Senna was one of the most masterful drivers of his era.  One of the tracks he shined the most at was the famous Monaco Street Circuit.  Senna has won the Monaco Grand Prix a record 6 times, including 5 in a row from 1989-1993.  Had it not been for driving error in 1988, that record would have been 7 wins in a row Monaco!

Given how difficult it is to win on a street circuit as narrow and demanding as Monaco, I don’t think we’ll ever see an F1 driver win more than 5 consecutive races at the same Grand Prix.



3.)  Most Wins by a team

Scuderia Ferrari has been in F1 since the beginning.  The team is on the verge of competing in its 1000th race in Formula 1, and in their 70 years of competing in F1, they’ve so far accumulated 238 wins (as of August 4, 2020).  The Next closest to them in wins is McLaren with 182 wins, Williams with 114 wins, and the most dominant team of this century so far Mercedes, with 106* wins.   Even a team as great and as dominant as Mercedes right now would still need to win 10-12 races a season for the next decade to get anywhere close to that record.

Meanwhile Scuderia Ferrari would have to either shutdown entirely, or go winless for the next decade for that to happen, and it’s just not very likely.  Even when Ferrari is at their worst they’re still competing for podiums and can even muster a win.  That is why I believe that no F1 team will ever surpass Scuderia Ferrari’s record of most wins as a constructor in F1.


4.)  Most different Race winners in a Season

Oh how I wish that Formula 1 was more competitive.    Maybe once the salary cap comes in and a few seasons go by we’ll see more winners in F1, but right now if you don’t drive for Mercedes, Ferrari, or Red Bull you stand practically no chance of winning Formula 1 right now.  The last non-Big 3 constructor to win an F1 race was the re-branded Lotus F1 team at the 2013 Australian Grand Prix (and they’re not even a team anymore, they’re Renault F1 now).   It’s been over 7 years since we had more than 2-3 teams competing for wins.

Compare that to the 1982 season where we saw 11 different race winners in 16 Grand Prix events!  Those 11 different winners came from 8 different constructors!   Can you imagine how exciting the F1 title race would be if we had that many winners in a season!   The closest thing we get to that today is in Formula E.

5.)  Sebastian Vettel, Most Consecutive wins

2013 was an amazing season for Sebastian Vettel.  The German driver locked in his 4th consecutive driver’s championship by winning 13-of-19-races that season; including the final 9 rounds of the season.  By comparison the most consecutive wins by F1 legend Michael Schumacher is 7 wins (which was also achieved by Nico Rosberg from the 2015-2016 season).   Even Lewis Hamilton’s longest winning streak in Formula 1 is only 5 consecutive races. 


For a driver to break this record they’ll have to have 10 races where absolutely nothing goes wrong and everything goes 100% perfect, and I just don’t see that ever happening.

 


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