How Max Verstappen at 28 compares to Lewis Hamilton and Michael Schumacher

At 28 years of age, Max Verstappen already has quite a few records to his name in F1. 

For example, he was the youngest driver to start a race, score points, stand on the podium and win a race, allowing him to distance himself in certain areas from big names in F1 history at a young age.

Many years have passed since Verstappen set a plethora of 'youngest ever' records and he has already completed 11 seasons.

He has already surpassed many champions of the past when it comes to race starts at 28, however this can partly be attributed to the calendar extension in recent years.

In terms of the number of wins, the same pattern can be seen. Verstappen is in the lead with a considerable gap to Vettel in second place. Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton are not far behind, while Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost had fewer than 10 wins to their names at that time.

Verstappen, however, is only slightly better than Vettel in terms of the number of pole positions. Verstappen now stands at 48, while the German had 46 poles at this point in his career. Hamilton is right behind that, followed by Senna, Schumacher and Prost.

In terms of world titles, the Dutchman is on par with Vettel, four in total. Schumacher had two championships to his name, while Hamilton had "only" captured one of his seven titles. Senna and Prost were still title-less.

View below a summary of each driver's major achievements at the time they were as old as Max Verstappen is now (January 2026). Juan Manuel Fangio, the only other driver with four or more titles, is missing from the list below because he was in his late 30s when he debuted in the official championship. The figures are based on the exact same age, i.e. 28 years and 98 days.