Top 10 F1 drivers with the most race starts

#3 - Michael Schumacher (306)

Michael Schumacher won 5 titles in a row at the start of the 2000s

Who would've guessed that Bertrand Gachot's imprisonment would pave the way for the most successful career in Formula 1?

Michael Schumacher began his Grand Prix career as a stand-in for Gachot at Jordan for the Belgian Grand Prix and immediately impressed everybody by qualifying seventh, despite never driving around Spa before.

Schumacher was brought back down to earth by a clutch failure on the opening lap but the seeds were planted for an immediate promotion. Benetton signed Schumacher for the next race in Italy, where the German would score his first points, finishing ahead of his triple world champion teammate Nelson Piquet. Schumacher would claim his first of a record 91 wins at Spa in 1992 and further success would soon follow.

The banning of electronic aids proved crucial in propelling Benetton to the forefront of the sport for 1994, locking Schumacher into a title fight with Damon Hill. Michael came out on top in this scrap, despite missing four races through bans and disqualifications, and became the first German world champion in the process.

1995 was more of the same, another Hill-Schumacher fight that the latter won but 1996 would provide a very different challenge for the der Kaiser.

Michael moved to the struggling Ferrari team for 1996 and set about transforming them into a top team once again, eventually winning his third title in the year 2000. That title win opened the floodgates, so to speak, as Schumacher would rewrite every record in the book by 2004, the year of his unprecedented seventh world championship.

Schumacher retired after 2006 but would return to the sport in 2010 for one last hurrah with Mercedes. Despite only finishing on the podium once, he laid the groundwork for the Silver Arrows' domination of the sport, which echoes his own success at Ferrari.