The most successful Formula One drivers of all time

When Sebastian Vettel won his first F1 title in 2010, aged 23, he became the youngest champion in history. Nobody has wrenched the crown from him since. Invariably quick in qualifying, and on race day, Vettel and his Red Bull team make up F1's new dynasty. Vettel is one of just three drivers to win four titles in a row; and the German's succeeding at a faster rate even than his boyhood hero...

Seven world championships, 91 race wins, 155 podium finishes: Even if the identity of F1's "best" driver ever is up for debate, Michael Schumacher is the most successful. Not only did he bring the F1 title back home to Ferrari after 21 barren years, he gave the Scuderia five in a row. Germany waited more than 50 years for its first F1 champion - then these two came along, one after the other.

Meet the third and final racer ever to win four F1 championships in a row (1954-57). Nobody succeeded as swiftly as Juan Manuel Fangio, who became known as 'Maestro'. The Argentine only made it to Europe and Formula One aged 37. In just 51 career F1 races, Fangio won 24, was on pole 28 times and set 23 fastest laps. Two of his titles were under German colors, in the old Mercedes Silver Arrows.

James, Jim or Jimmy Clark boasted speed, consistency and mechanical sympathy - of crucial importance in his notoriously fast but flimsy Lotus - in equal measure. The 1963 and 65 champion Clark died when he crashed into a forested runoff area at the old Hockenheim circuit in 1968. He was 32. At Clark's request, his grave lists him as a farmer first, then an F1 champion and Indianapolis 500 winner.

Modern race drivers still alive to tell tales of their careers should perhaps send three-time champion Jackie Stewart a birthday card on June 11. Back when many in the pits were cavalier - at best - about driver deaths, the tenacious Scot organized the drivers and began dragging F1 out of the Dark Ages. He lost many friends on the way; countryman Clark and teammate Francois Cevert in particular.

Jochen Rindt was not alive to claim his 1970 world title, having died at a Monza practice session that year. Flamboyant behind the wheel, the Mainz-born driver who raced under Austrian colors is perhaps most famed for overtaking four cars in a single corner at Silverstone in 1969. Numerically the least successful on our list, the 28-year-old might have raced - and won - for another decade.

In the space of a 15-year career, "Black Jack" Brabham won three titles. Back-to-back crowns at the wheel of a Cooper were impressive enough in 1959 and 60, but Brabham's 1966 triumph wins him a unique place in history. He won the title driving for his own Brabham team - a feat attempted by several F1 driver entrepreneurs of the era, but achieved by just the one.

Many F1 fans who missed Nelson Piquet's career have still seen footage of his track-side punch-up with Eliseo Salazar after a 1982 crash - to the BBC commentary line: "And take that! Oh my goodness," from the voice of F1, Murray Walker. A fiercely bright lover of mind games, Piquet probably did win more races than friends in F1, taking two of his three titles with Bernie Ecclestone at Brabham.

Few F1 drivers stuck to their guns quite as fiercely as Niki Lauda. Austrian Lauda returned to the cockpit just weeks after a life-threatening crash in 1976. But having made this sacrifice, he then withdrew from the title-deciding race because he thought the soaking conditions were unsafe. And Lauda later did what even Schumacher could not - returning from retirement to win a third title in 1984.

Prost's great rival, Brazil's great hero, and F1's last - and ever so great - loss. Many fans pick Ayrton Senna as their "best" driver ever. A charismatic philanthropist and devout Christian out of the car but an uncompromising bully behind the wheel, Senna was loved and hated in equal measure in his prime. In 1994, Michael Schumacher dedicated his first title to Senna, killed at round 3 in Imola.

Lauda's last teammate, Alain Prost, won four titles between 1985 and '93. The curly-haired Frenchman with fluent English but an out-raaa-jous acc-cent was nicknamed "le professeur" in every language. It was a badge of honor and shame: both praising his error-free driving and criticizing his tendency to play by the numbers rather than go all out for the win. Only Schumacher has won more races.