Which of Vettel, Hamilton and Verstappen picked up largest percentage of points?

F1 News

24 January 2022 at 19:16

Last update 24 January 2022 at 21:05

GPblog.com

In the last twelve years, Formula 1 had only four different world champions. Max Verstappen and Nico Rosberg grabbed "only" one. Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton grabbed the other titles. But who grabbed the highest percentage of total points in a single season?

Sebastian Vettel most dominant

In the graph below, you can immediately see which champion has eaten most of his pie over the past ten years. Sebastian Vettel grabbed 83.58 percent of the total points to be earned by drivers in 2013. The German, then working for Red Bull Racing, is also in second place with 82.53 percent in 2011. In both years, 475 points could be earned. In 2013 Vettel took 397 and in 2011 392.

Lewis Hamilton is in P3 with his 80.21 percent score from 2015. The Briton then took 381 of the maximum 475 points. He drove his second best points percentage in the 'corona year' of 2020. There were 'only' 442 points to be had then, of which the seven-time world champion grabbed 347. The largest point total Hamilton ever grabbed was in 2019. The Briton earned a record 413 points. As a whopping 546 points could be handed out, the percentage ended up at 75.64 percent.

Verstappen and Hamilton close together in 2021

Verstappen's score is a lot lower than his rival, but not the lowest since 2010. Vettel gathered a good half of the points in 2010 and 2012. Verstappen picked up 69.69 percent of the points in his first championship year, according to the chart below. This fact is only just not exact. Verstappen picked up 396 points out of 572 and thus picked up a percentage of 69.23. In the list of highest points percentage, Hamilton's total in the exciting year of battle 2021 is logically directly below Verstappen's total.

A final interesting fact is that only Jim Clark managed to set a hundred percent score in a season. In 1963 and 1965 he picked up 54 out of 54 points.