Johnnie Parsons

Johnnie Parsons was an American driver born in 1918 whose World Championship record was built entirely at the Indianapolis 500, which counted toward the Formula 1 World Championship from 1950 to 1960. He made ten starts between 1950 and 1958, all in Kurtis Kraft machinery.

Parsons made an emphatic start: he won the very first Indianapolis 500 to count for the championship, in 1950, a result that gave him nine points and sixth place in the inaugural World Championship standings. He added a further three points in 1956, when he was classified eighteenth.

With one win and one podium from ten starts — a ten per cent win rate — Parsons stands among the most successful of the American oval specialists whose careers appear in the Formula 1 record books through the Indianapolis 500's championship status during the 1950s.