Ben Haenow crowned 2014 X Factor winner

Ben Haenow has won the 2014 series of The X Factor.

The 29-year-old van driver fought off competition from Fleur East and in front of an audience of thousands at London’s SSE Arena in Wembley this evening (December 14), with millions more watching the series’ finale live on ITV1.

Ben, who hails from Croyden, now enters the race for this year’s Official Christmas Number 1 with Something I Need. The track, originally by OneRepublic, will be on sale through various digital retailers this evening.

Now in its 11th year, X Factor has dominated the Christmas singles market for the past decade, with the show’s winners responsible for six of the last eight Christmas Number 1s.

Every Official Christmas Number 1 ever!

Despite a strong track record for winner’s singles, scoring a chart-topping single for Christmas is never guaranteed. In 2009, Joe McElderry became the first X Factor winner to lose a Christmas chart race after going head-to-head with a social media campaign to get Rage Against The Machine’s Killing In The Name to the festive chart summit.

This year there are an eclectic mix of current tracks and Facebook campaigns to get classic songs from the likes of Iron Maiden and LFO to Number 1 this Christmas, as well as charity singles from Band Aid 30 and The Peace Collective to name but a few. Check out the full contenders list here.

The race for Christmas Number 1 kicked off today (December 14) at 00:01am and ends at midnight on Saturday, December 20. The Official Christmas Singles Chart Top 40 will then be counted down on BBC Radio 1’s Official Chart Show with Jameela Jamil between 4pm and 7pm on Sunday, December 21, with the full Top 100 posted on OfficialCharts.com at 7pm.