Who is the most successful country in motorsport and F1?

Filed under: Features on February 8, 2007

Writing about A1GP got me thinking. Pitching nation against nation is a fantastic concept and what if Formula One was like that? If it was, who are the real world champions? What is the most successful motorsport nation? To answer that I have looked at the statistics for the last 56 years of Formula One (1950-2006) and I think I’ve found the answer.

It is first necessary to outline the criteria for the comparisons. Only nations which have scored a World Championship point are eligible. This means wins and podiums can be taken into account but I have explicitly not looked for nations which may have held pole positions or achieved fastest laps yet failed to score any points. This is for practicality’s sake.

I also recognise that the system of awarding points has changed many times over the history of Formula One. Nevertheless, statistics are statistics and considering the majority of points in this era have been scored by just one man (Michael Schumacher, Germany) and that points is just one comparisons, it should even itself out.

So let us get started. This first table shows the total number of World Championship’s won by each nation.

	Nation	World Championships
	Great Britain	11
	Brazil	9
	Germany	7
	Argentina	5
	Austria	4
	Austrailia	4
	France	4
	Finland	3
	Italy	3
	Spain	2
	USA	2
	Canada	1
	New Zealand	1
	South Africa	1

That’s all well and good, but it’s hardly conclusive. Next, we will look at the total number of World Championship points scored by each nation.

	Nation	Total Points
	Great Britain	3818.4
	France	2128.9
	Brazil	2056.5
	Germany	2004
	Italy	1412.5
	Finland	929.5
	Austria	911.5
	USA	640
	Argentina	542.5
	Australia	521
	New Zealand	519.5
	Spain	381
	Canada	335
	Belguim	313
	Columbia	307
	Sweden	294
	Switzerland	277
	South Africa	246
	Mexico	143.2

This provides a little more weight. However, there is the aforementioned problem – over the years the Formula One points system has changed and so it favors drivers in the modern era. Also, points are achieved through consistency and it follows that we look at outright wins.

	Nation	Wins
	Great Britain	186
	Germany	103
	Brazil	90
	France	77
	Austria	41
	Italy	37
	Argentina	36
	Finland	34
	Australia	26
	USA	22
	Canada	17
	Spain	15
	New Zealand	12
	Belguim	11
	South Africa	10
	Sweden	10
	Columbia	7
	Switzerland	7
	Mexico	4

Likewise, a win doesn’t necessarily imply outright speed. The following shows the total number of pole positions.

	Nation	Pole Positions
	Great Britain	168
	Brazil	112
	Germany	77
	France	69
	Austria	46
	Finland	43
	Italy	40
	Argentina	31
	USA	28
	Australia	17
	Canada	15
	Spain	15
	Belguim	14
	Sweden	14
	Columbia	12
	Switzerland	7
	New Zealand	6
	Mexico	3
	South Africa	3

Staying on the subject of outright speed, this shows the total number of fastest laps.

	Nation	Fastest Laps
	Great Britain	170
	Germany	92
	France	80
	Brazil	70
	Austria	48
	Finland	47
	Italy	41
	Argentina	28
	Australia	24
	USA	24
	Switzerland	18
	Canada	17
	Belguim	15
	New Zealand	13
	Columbia	12
	Sweden	9
	Spain	8
	Mexico	5
	South Africa	5

And finally, as a more general measure of success, let us compare the total number of podiums achieved.

	Nation	Podiums
	Great Britain	452
	France	279
	Brazil	249
	Germany	218
	Italy	151
	Austria	115
	Finland	104
	USA	85
	Argentina	80
	New Zealand	71
	Australia	56
	Belguim	40
	Sweden	38
	Spain	37
	Canada	36
	Switzerland	34
	South Africa	33
	Columbia	30
	Mexico	22

Now, to bring some kind of conclusion and amalgamate all of the separate comparisons into one I have weighted each nations position in each of the above tables by awarding a score from 19 to 1 (there are 19 points scoring nations). This, therefore, gives us the final positions.

		Nation
1.		Great Britain
2.		Brazil
3.		Germany
4.		France
5.		Austria
6.		Italy
7.		Argentina
8.		Finland
9.		USA
10.		Australia
11.		Canada
12.		Spain
13.		New Zealand
14.		Belgium
15.		Sweden
16.		Switzerland
17.		Columbia
18.		South Africa
19.		Mexico

So there you have it – Rule Britannia! In each comparison made, statistically, Great Britain has been most successful. It is then followed closely by Brazil, Germany and France. Some nations, such as Germany, are largely being carried by the statistics of one driver (Schumacher). Some, like Argentina, haven’t won a World Championship since 1957 (Fangio) and have only ever had two Grand Prix participants (Fangio and Reutemann). Others, Great Britain, for example, have an even distribution amongst eight world champions and 15 points scoring drivers.

Isn’t it interesting that people always refer to Scandinavians or South Americans as being the most naturally gifted drivers when statistically they are eclipsed by the British? Why is it so often overlooked?

Also worth noting is that no Asian or Middle Eastern nation has ever scored a World Championship point. I anticipate that this will change during the next decade.

And so to conclude, I thought I would preempt the criticisms that I expect. Yes, this isn’t perfect but it does illustrate some interesting points. Motorsport is unfair and especially in Formula One, drivers never have the opportunity to compete in equal equipment. Does that make drawing comparisons irrelevant? Probably not, but it does demonstrate the need for A1GP to control the technology in its own series.

You could also argue that the success of a nation’s motorsport should include construction too. Perhaps, but overall, I would not expect the outcome to be significantly different.

And what about GNP? Isn’t Great Britain’s dominance proportional to the socio-economic opportunities within our country and just another example of the unfortunate economics of motor sport? Again, perhaps. However, the same applies to the motorsport heritage in smaller nations – Brazil or Argentina, for example. Senna, Piquet and Barrichello were all born into large amounts of money.

In some ways I wish the A1GP World Cup of Motorsport was based on Formula One. That way, at least we would have won something.…

If you would like to validate my statistics, feel free. I have provided the script used to generate them here.

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Comments

Jon

April 11th, 2007

Glad you added the bit about the script at the end, was worried that you’d sat there counting them all up.

Nice website by the way, you really should do some proffessional writing for autosport or something, it would help with your racing funding aswell. Every little helps !

Good luck

Poul

August 23rd, 2009

Nice job! I wish you could keep this updated, but I find your conclusions a bit strange: “Scandinavians not to be regarded such natural talents”; well, where did Hakkinen’s two championships go? Besides, all the scandinavian countries put together only has 1/4 of the Brittain’s population so actually it matches up even though it is much harder to get sponsorships when you come from a small country. I didn’t study this is details but I also caught that France was accounted for four championships. Strange, considering that Prost alone won four! All in all, nice idea but not fully carried through.
Thanks.

Martin

August 23rd, 2009

Poul:

France is an error on my part – fixed and well caught.

With regards to Scandinavians – all valid points. However, you are adding sociological analysis – I was merely taking statistics at face value (the point of this article).

peter

October 20th, 2009

Everyone knows that the Brits are also the best cheats, so how dose that factor in to your equation?

peter

October 20th, 2009

Real racers are on motorcycles, where skill actually counts for something, in F1 the car is 80%, any driver can win a championship given the best car, and when the rules keep changing to in favor of the brits is it any wonder the results are skewed? Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button, prime examples of undeserving champions, neither deserve to be called F1 champiosn.

jon

October 20th, 2009

Do these stats include Motorcycle racing? I agree with Peter that real racers ride motorcycles, car racing is boring, especially F1, the racing and skill in moto gp are by far superior, I think the Italians would have to be the worlds best racers, with Agostino and Rossi just to name a couple.

Martin

October 20th, 2009

‘jon’, I’m not surprised that you agree with ‘peter’ considering you are the same person… I would suggest masking your IP address next time! (122.148.187.145). How’s the weather in Queensland anyway?

If you can justify how Button or Brawn cheated, be my guest and maybe we can forward some information to the FIA?

Alan Jones

January 6th, 2010

A classically anglophilic skewed result as one would expect from a pom. Shall we try this rigged little pole again taking into account that Jackie stewart, and Jim Clark would probably identify more as being Scottish than British.? how does britannia fare now eh?

Viva brazil methinks

Ross

February 14th, 2010

Further, where is Finland in the world champion’s list? They had 4 world championship years: Hakkanen 2 – Rosburg and Raikonen 1 each……

AND, Lets look at this against population…..finland’s population = 5mil & UK = 61mil.

rrun your script considering populations and you will clearly see who is eh most succesfull F1 Nation.

Your statistics are structured to result in britania being the most sucessful. Classic case of making statistics say what you want.

Ross

February 14th, 2010

In fact I will do the numbers for you…..

To work effectively you need to measure your criteria as “how many” per 10 mil capita

So, here we go:

World Championships:
UK = 1,79 / 10mil capita
Fin = 7.53 / 10mil capita

Points:
UK = 622 / 10mil capita
Fin = 1750 / 10mil capita

Wins:
UK = 30 / 10mil capita
Fin = 64 / 10mil capita

Pole Positions:
UK = 27 / 10mil capita
Fin = 81 / 10mil capita

Fatsest Laps:
UK = 28 / 10mil capita
Fin = 88 / 10mil capita

Podiums:
UK = 74 / 10mil capita
Fin = 196 / 10mil capita

All numbers are your numbers. Populations obtained from Google.
UK = 61,399,118
Fin = 5,312,800

Please correct your site….

A South African F1 Fan….By the way we (SA) are last.

Martin

February 14th, 2010

Whether Jackie Stewart and Jim Clark are “identified” as being Scottish is irrelevant – they are/were British, raced under a British competition license and travelled on a British passport. Scotland is not a sovereign nation.

With regards to Finland – you are correct, somehow they were missed from the World Champions list. I have since amended this. However, when this article was written, Kimi Räikkönen had not yet won his world championship.

I’m also not convinced that there exist a tangible correlation between population and success Formula One. By that logic, the USA (or soon China) would eclipse other nations and this is obviously not the case. It is interesting point though.

Alan Jones

February 15th, 2010

perhaps to an Englishman they are British but to the rest of the world they are Scottish. Nevermind then have your little pole one thing I have learnt in life is not to bother arguing with a deluded nationalistic Brit they will always shift the goalposts, as Ross says “Classic case of making statistics say what you want”