The crop of F1 drivers on the grid in 2023 rank amongst the highest-ever F1 points scorers in the entire history of the sport.

Lewis Hamilton, Max Verstappen and Fernando Alonso side by side.

Three of the World Champions currently racing in Formula 1 rank amongst the top five highest-ever F1 points scorers, while the other two are recent retirees from the sport.

With the F1 points scoring system having been revised entirely for 2010, increasing the points awarded for a win from 10 up to 25, it’s not surprising that there is a huge amount of recency bias with the current crop of drivers achieving high places on the list on all-time points scorers.

Further aiding the modern glut of drivers is the points system rewarding all who finish in the top 10, a point for fastest lap, points for Sprint Qualifying races, a far more reliable field due to stable regulations and an increased focus on sustainability, as well as far more races.

For example, the F1 field in the 17-race 2000 championship could only fight for points by finishing in the top six on Sunday, while racing highly-strung V10-engined monsters that gave little consideration to such paltry concerns like fuel consumption or reliability – meaning it was far more difficult for drivers to score points than the modern day ‘participation trophy’ approach.

With that in mind, let’s run through where each driver on the 2023 grid ranks in the F1 points all-time ranking list, as well as the outright top 10…

10. Daniel Ricciardo – 1311

Moving into the top 10 all-time F1 points scorers, and we start with the comeback kid Ricciardo.

Having returned to Red Bull as their reserve driver ahead of the F1 2023 campaign, a poor 10-race spell for Nyck de Vries at Red Bull’s sister team AlphaTauri opened the door for Ricciardo to return to the grid in his place, as of the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Ricciardo is on 1311 points, which may rise during the remainder of the season, even though the AlphaTauri AT04 is arguably the slowest challenger out there.

Ricciardo was actually ninth on the list until the Spanish Grand Prix but was overtaken by Sergio Perez after the Mexican’s fourth-place finish at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

9. Sergio Perez – 1441

Perez has been racing in F1 for more than a decade uninterrupted, having made his debut a year after the revised higher points system was introduced.

Moving into ninth place ahead of Ricciardo thanks to fourth place in Spain, he is still well behind eighth-placed Michael Schumacher. He’ll need a big season from here to overtake the German legend.

8. Michael Schumacher – 1566

The seven-time World Champion is regarded as one of the sport’s all-time greats, if not the greatest-ever, but Schumacher is the driver who is probably represented the least fairly by the fact he raced for almost the entirety of his career using the old points system – only his Mercedes years saw him enjoy the higher weighting, and his resulting points total has him further down the top 10 list than he deserves, particularly as even that top 10 position becomes precarious.

Schumacher still scored a gargantuan 1566 points during his career but, had he enjoyed the same ease of scoring modern-day drivers do throughout his years in the sport, he’d have wound up with 4,660.2. This would place him in second place, bested only by Lewis Hamilton’s career total.

7. Nico Rosberg – 1594.5

Having driven almost three-quarters of his career with the higher-points system, with three of those years at the wheel of the dominant Mercedes juggernaut, it’s not surprising the long-retired Nico Rosberg still makes it comfortably into the top 10.

Rosberg finished his career 28.5 points clear of what compatriot Michael Schumacher wound up with, a total of 1594.5 points, despite the huge amounts of success Schumacher encountered during his career – shedding further light on the difference the points change in 2010 really made.

But, considering Rosberg retired at the very peak of his career, and could likely have even been driving for Mercedes today had he chosen to do so, the German could have been competing near the very top of this list by now…

6. Valtteri Bottas – 1797

Bottas replaced Rosberg at Mercedes in 2017, with the more placid Finn settling into a supporting role to Lewis Hamilton as the British driver set off on a four-year streak of titles that was only ended by Max Verstappen in 2021.

With 1792 points on the board so far, 1327 of those came courtesy of his supporting years at Mercedes. Much of the rest are from a few years in the midfield at Williams between 2013 and 2016, while Bottas is unlikely to add a huge amount more during 2023 as he and Alfa Romeo struggle to score.

5. Kimi Raikkonen – 1873

The now-retired Kimi Raikkonen ended his career with 1873 points, having split his time in F1 almost exactly in half with the first half in the old points system, and the latter half with the new.

Making a name for himself at McLaren as Mika Hakkinen’s replacement, Raikkonen almost pulled off the 2003 and 2005 World Championships but was let down by Mercedes reliability, before finally winning the title in 2007 with Ferrari.

Ousted from Ferrari at the end of ’09, he returned with Lotus in 2012 and enjoyed a career resurgence (and a huge points bonus cheque!) before seeing out his twilight years at Ferrari and Alfa Romeo.

Had he raced entirely on the newer points system, he’d have ended his career with 3,043 points.

4. Fernando Alonso – 2244

Having made his F1 debut at the same time as Raikkonen, Alonso has had his career similarly divided in half, although is enjoying a longer career in which his competitive Aston Martin is allowing him to add ever more points to his tally.

Alonso isn’t far behind third-place on the all-time list, but is unlikely to close that gap, given that it’s Max Verstappen up next…

3. Max Verstappen – 2477.5

The Dutch driver overtook Alonso for third place on the all-time list courtesy of his win (appropriately, over Alonso!) at the Monaco Grand Prix.

Verstappen has raced his entire career under the new points system, with Red Bull also becoming dominant at the point where extra points started to be handed out for fastest laps and for sprint events.

With 49 wins and 93 podiums to his name, Verstappen is climbing the stats lists, but is already amongst the highest-ever points scorers as he now has 2444.5 to his name.

However, despite his stranglehold on the F1 2023 campaign, moving up to second place on the list is out of reach this year…

2. Sebastian Vettel – 3098

The four-time World Champion’s titles came in the first four years of the new points system, with his dominance meaning Vettel quickly shot up the all-time points standings even before he joined Ferrari in 2015.

While titles evaded him and the Scuderia, Vettel remained a regular winner and podium finisher up until his form took a severe dip in 2020. Two years at Aston Martin in the midfield didn’t yield much more success, but a few points finishes and podiums moved Vettel up to 3098 points outright.

Had his career been run entirely under the new system, he’d have 3,409.6 points.

While Vettel has retired from F1, he’s made it clear that he isn’t sure whether the non-racing life will sit right with him. There’s still a chance his points score could still rise in the future…

1. Lewis Hamilton – 4606.5

Unsurprisingly, Lewis Hamilton tops the list of all-time F1 points scorers. Hamilton has had an uninterrupted career since making his debut in the front-running McLaren in 2007, with the majority of his career thus coming in the higher-points system.

With a front-running car for most of the years of his career, Hamilton’s relentless consistency and ability to maximise results have resulted in some truly frightening dominance when he’s ended up with the best car.

Hamilton rarely fails to achieve the very best result his car is capable of and, combined with a lack of self-inflicted mistakes, the British driver is on a points tally of 4606.5 after the US Grand Prix. Had he had the benefit of the extra handful of years with the newer points system, he’d be on 5000+…