Max Verstappen: Red Bull driver joins illustrious list of F1’s three-time consecutive world champions

Max Verstappen sealed his third consecutive title last weekend to put himself among Formula 1’s greats.

Verstappen joins Jack Brabham, Jackie Stewart, Niki Lauda, Nelson Piquet and Ayrton Senna as a three-time champion. However, none of those aforementioned drivers won their titles consecutively, unlike Verstappen.

The 26-year-old, who has won 64 per cent of the Grand Prix held since the start of 2021, isn’t the first driver to do that but he certainly joins an elite club.

Juan Manuel Fangio

Wins during hat-trick of titles era (1954-1956): 13 (54 per cent)

When you think of F1’s early years in the 1950s, you think of Juan Manuel Fangio. Having won the second ever Formula 1 World Championship in 1951 with Alfa Romeo, Fangio joined Maserati in 1953 and finished runner-up that year.

He won the first two races he entered in 1954, before leaving Maserati for Mercedes mid-season – something that wasn’t unusual in those days.

The Silver Arrows had success straight away as Fangio led a one-two from team-mate Karl Kling at the French Grand Prix as the aerodynamics of the Mercedes blew the field away. Fangio went on to claim three more victories in 1954 and sealed his second title.

He stayed at Mercedes for 1955, a year overshadowed by the Le Mans disaster which saw 83 spectators killed after debris flew into the crowd. Mercedes withdrew from all motorsport for 34 years, although the decision was said to be taken before the accident.

In F1, Fangio and new team-mate Stirling Moss dominated an unusual season as several events were cancelled following the Le Mans crash.

Fangio joined Ferrari for 1956 in a turbulent year that still saw him win the title. He didn’t get on with Enzo Ferrari nor team manager Eraldo Sculati and had problems with the car’s reliability and handling.

Back then, drivers could share cars and share points. In the finale, Peter Collins was on course to win the championship but handed over his car to Fangio, so the pair shared six points for second place which gave Fangio a third consecutive title.

The Argentine returned to Maserati in 1957 and was back on top of his game as he won the opening three races he entered.

His fourth win of the season, at the Nordschleife, is still regarded as one of the greatest drives in F1 history. Fangio had a poor pit stop and came out 50 seconds behind Ferrari duo Collins and Mike Hawthorn.

On the penultimate lap, he overtook both drivers and held on to win by three seconds and sealed a fourth consecutive crown.

Michael Schumacher

Wins during hat-trick of titles era (2000-2002): 29 (56 per cent)

Michael Schumacher joined Ferrari in 1996 on the back of two world titles with Benetton. He joined a team which was struggling, but often punched above the car’s weight to battle the likes of Jacques Villeneuve, David Coulthard and Mika Hakkinen.

Schumacher broke his leg at the 1999 British Grand Prix – the first season Ferrari had a realistic chance of winning the title.

He came back to help Ferrari win the Constructors’ Championship but the Scuderia’s wait for a first drivers’ title since Jody Scheckter in 1979 continued.

The 2000 season saw Schumacher go head-to-head with Hakkinen as their rivalry came to a climax. They won all but four races that year and a memorable weekend at Suzuka went the way of Schumacher after an exceptional show of driving from both drivers in the penultimate round of the year.

2001 was more comfortable for Schumacher as he won a then record-equalling nine races and sealed the title with four events remaining.

It was a similar story in 2002, except the infamous Austrian Grand Prix made the headlines for all the wrong reasons as Rubens Barrichello gifted Schumacher victory on the last lap on the run to the chequered flag.

Schumacher set a new record of 11 race wins in a season and won the championship with six races to go, a record even Verstappen hasn’t quite beaten in 2023.

Another title came in 2003 after McLaren’s Kimi Raikkonen and Williams’ Juan Pablo Montoya pushed Schumacher hard.

The German wasn’t at his best and a controversial mid-season tyre changed seemed to favour Ferrari, with Schumacher crucially winning the Italian and United States Grand Prix prior to the finale in Japan.

A record fifth consecutive championship turned out to be Schumacher’s seventh and last title as he set a new benchmark of 13 wins. Will Verstappen match this run of drivers’ titles?

Sebastian Vettel

Wins during hat-trick of titles era (2010-2012): 21 (36 per cent)

Sebastian Vettel was seen as the ‘Baby Schumi’ when he burst onto the scene with an incredible maiden win for Toro Rosso on a wet weekend at Monza in 2008.

He joined Red Bull in 2009 and came out on top in a four-way championship fight a year later to become the youngest ever world champion at 23-years-old.

Remarkably, Vettel never led the standings until after the finale in Abu Dhabi, where he took a dominant win, while Fernando Alonso and Mark Webber failed to do enough to clinch the title themselves.

The Vettel era was really felt in 2011 when he took a record 15 pole positions, a record that still stands today, as the Red Bull driver took 11 wins on his way to becoming a double champion.

Red Bull had the best car again in 2012, but operational and reliability woes gave Alonso a chance to snatch the title away.

Four wins on the spin in Singapore, Japan, South Korea and India meant Vettel overhauled a 39-point deficit to Alonso and led the championship by 13 points with three races to go.

The number stayed at 13 ahead of the finale in Brazil, where Vettel came back from a Lap 1 spin to get over the line and make it a hat-trick of titles.

It looked like another championship was going to go down to the wire in 2013, until Vettel came back from the summer break at the peak of his powers and won all nine races to the end of the season – a record which stood until Verstappen won 10 consecutive Grand Prix with victory at Monza in 2023.

Nevertheless, it was a dominant performance from Vettel, who was Red Bull’s last champion before Verstappen.

Lewis Hamilton

Wins during hat-trick of titles era (2017-2019): 31 (50 per cent)

Lewis Hamilton had the greatest rookie season ever in 2007 and came agonisingly close to the title in one of the most controversial years in F1.

He came out on the winning side in an equally dramatic 2008 campaign, famously overtaking Timo Glock on the last corner of the last lap at the Brazilian Grand Prix to break Felipe Massa and Ferrari’s hearts.

That proved to be Hamilton’s only title with McLaren as he joined Mercedes in 2013, ahead of the turbo-hybrid regulations that were introduced in 2014.

That move will go down as one of the best by a driver as Hamilton was now with a team that were in a league of their own.

He went into the double points title-decider in Abu Dhabi with an advantage of 17 points over Nico Rosberg and it was an anti-climax, as the German suffered an electrical issue and Hamilton dominated the race. A relatively more comfortable 2015 title followed before Rosberg won in 2016 and retired from F1.

Hamilton’s four-peat of championships followed when F1 moved to wider cars with more downforce and bigger tyres. The Mercedes driver came out on top against Sebastian Vettel in 2017 as the latter cracked under the pressure.

It was a similar story in 2018, which was arguably Hamilton’s most impressive season as he won in a car that was equal, or possibly slightly less competitive, than Vettel’s Ferrari.

2019 was a season of two halves as Hamilton won six of the opening eight races but only took four more victories in the remainder of the year as Mercedes’ rivals caught up. Nevertheless, Hamilton held his own and made it a hat-trick of titles.

Like the others in this illustrious list, he made it four championships in a row in the Covid-hit 2020 season. He broke Michael Schumacher’s record of 91 wins at the Portuguese Grand Prix and equalled his own personal best of 11 victories in a single campaign.

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