F1 now has 13 race-winning drivers

There were no new winners in Formula 1 last year but we’ve already had two this season: Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri.

But last year now looks like a blip in a sequence of seasons where several drivers have claimed their maiden victories. Carlos Sainz Jnr and George Russell did in 2022, it was Esteban Ocon’s turn the year before that, Sergio Perez and Pierre Gasly broke through in 2020 and Charles Leclerc likewise in 2019.

As a result, F1’s 20-car grid is now packed with winners. Piastri’s victory in the Hungarian Grand Prix means 13 of the 20 drivers now have at least one win to their names.

This pushes F1 past the high of 12 seen at the end of 2022. In addition to the drivers who scored their first wins since 2019, Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso, Max Verstappen, Daniel Ricciardo and Valtteri Bottas were already race winners.

F1 has seen similarly strong fields in the past, albeit with larger grid sizes. In the lauded 2012 season finale at Interlagos 11 drivers had previously won races, albeit in a field of 24 cars.

Further back in F1 history, a handful of grids featured even more than 13 winners. That number was last reached at the penultimate race of 1980 in Montreal. Two rounds earlier at Zandvoort the grid included 14 winners on its 24-car grid.

Two years previously, the grid boasted its largest contingent of previous winners. This first happened in the Belgian Grand Prix at Zolder, the sixth round of the championship.

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When the season began at Argentina’s Buenos Aires circuit in the middle of January, 13 of the 24-strong entry were prior winners. They included reigning champion Niki Lauda and fellow title winners James Hunt and Emerson Fittipaldi.

The other race winners when the season began included Lotus team mates Mario Andretti and Ronnie Peterson, who dominated that season. Ferrari’s Carlos Reutemann already had five wins to his name and ex-Ferrari driver Clay Regazzoni, now at Shadow, had four. Wolf’s Jody Scheckter had won seven times.

Other drivers had picked up sole wins with an array of different teams. Lauda’s Brabham team mate John Watson gave Penske their only win in 1976. ATS driver Jochen Mass scored the only win of his career for McLaren in grim circumstances the year before when the Spanish Grand Prix at Montjuich Park was cut short when a car was launched into the crowd, killing four.

Vittorio Brambilla took his only win the same year at the Osterreiching. Two years later it had been Alan Jones’ turn, for Shadow, and that season Jacques Laffite gave Ligier their first triumph.

To those 13 grand prix winners a 14th was added in Monaco. Eight-times grand prix winner and two-times championship runner-up Jacky Ickx returned to the championship with Ensign.

For the next round on the grid, the Belgian Grand Prix at Zolder, there was another race winner on the grid – though he’d been there since the start of the season. Patrick Depailler triumphed for Tyrrell in Monaco, becoming F1’s latest race winner, and boosting the contingent to 15.

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There were only 24 places on the grid, and 32 drivers vying for them, but all the past victors qualified. They all made the cut a second time for the Spanish Grand Prix at Jarama two weeks later.

But for the Swedish Grand Prix at Anderstorp, despite a reduced field of 27 cars looking to make the race, Ickx failed to qualify. Unhappy with the uncompetitive Ensign, he did not return for the rest of the season.

F1 has never had as many race-winning drivers on a grid before or since that two-race spell in the middle of 1978. With the smaller grid of today, hitting that height again would require three-quarters of the field to be race winners. Will we ever see that happen?

Race winners at the 1978 and 2024 Belgian grands prix

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