Michael Schumacher the King of Spa-Francorchamps

Wednesday, 26 July 2023 at 08:50

schumacher hakkinen alesi belgian gp f1 1992 photo imgur

Michael Schumacher's reign as the King of Formula 1 was such, that over three decades since he first won at Spa-Francorchamps in 1992, the great German remains the most successful driver at the Belgian Grand Prix.

The hallowed venue played a massive role in Schumacher's legacy. Starting with his legendary debut at the venue in 1991 and including his first Grand Prix victory exactly a year later. And thus remains the main catalyst that launched one of the greatest F1 careers of all time.

This year, heading to Spa-Francochamps for the 2023 Belgian Grand Prix it is fitting to look back on who has ruled the tarmac that twists through the Ardennes Forest over the years. Of the 67 races in the country, 55 have been held at the venue.

Schumacher has a record six Belgian GP victories to his name and the highest points tally of all, in the equalisation formula (detailed below) used for the analysis. Ayrton Senna is next on five wins, with Lewis Hamilton next (the highest-placed driver of the current driver era) with four wins, tied with Jim Clark and Kimi Raikkonen.

Points equalisation methodology used establish the F1 driver rankings at Spa

How does the points-scoring system work in Formula One?

To bring in a measure of uniformity and equalisation between different F1 eras, the analysis conducted by Betting Expert applied the current F1 points scoring system to all 55 Belgian Grands Prix held at Spa-Francorchamps.

For example, the 1987 Belgian GP that was won by Alain Prost, the Frenchman scored nine points for the win. If he won today, he would score 25 points for the win.

Also, in 1987, only the first six finishers were awarded points while today, the first 10 finishers are awarded points. So, we awarded the first 10 positions in the 1987 Belgian GP, the points as per the allocation system today.

This methodology was repeated for each Belgian Grand Prix held at Spa and we then created the leaderboard from which we made the conclusions.

https://www.bettingexpert.com/news/motorsports/schumacher-tops-the-all-time-leaderboard-2023-07-25-115508

The analysis revealed that with his remarkable score of 227 points from 14 races, Michael Schumacher is the most successful driver at Spa. A further 90 more grand prix wins followed in Schumacher’s illustrious career including five more wins in Belgium which included a hat-trick of wins from 1995 to 1997.

Lewis Hamilton is second on the list with 208 points from 16 races followed by Sebastian Vettel and Ayrton Senna. Kimi Raikkonen, who won three straight Belgian Grands Prix (2004, 2005 and 2007) is fifth.

Fernando Alonso is 12th in the all-time leaderboard for the circuit and Max Verstappen, who’ll be looking for a hat-trick of wins here this weekend, is 17th.

1992 Belgian Grand Prix Schumacher first win 23-Aug-17 4-28-46 PM

Highlights of the Spa-Francorchamps research

Michael Schumacher is the top performer at Spa with 227 points - Hamilton is second with 208 points
Alberto Ascari has the best points per race (19.75) but he only raced four times there
Alain Prost has the highest podium percentage (77.78 percent) with 7 podiums from 9 races
Alain Prost also has the maximum fastest laps (7) at Spa
Pole position has only contributed to 21 winners (38.18 percent) from 55 races
Lewis Hamilton has the record for most third-place finishes (4) at Spa
Fernando Alonso is 11th (98 points) in the all-time leaderboard but is likely to break into the top 10 this weekend