Great debate: Is Fernando Alonso really F1’s unluckiest driver ever?

Probably not, but he has a point – Oleg Karpov

You do have to give Alonso a bit of leeway for calling himself “the unluckiest driver in the world” – that comment came over team radio, in the heat of the moment. And he’s probably right in saying that the context matters.

Still, you wouldn’t be entirely wrong to assume that the two-time world champion does sometimes feel that way.

Remember that image from the 2012 Brazilian Grand Prix, just seconds after he stepped out of his Ferrari? Raindrops on the open visor, eyes staring into the void – the look of a man who hadn’t just lost a title fight to a rival in superior machinery after delivering an almost flawless season.

Those were the eyes of Alonso, who’d just lost what could possibly have been his fifth world title.

With only a handful of points separating him from becoming one of the most successful drivers in F1 history, it’s not hard to understand why Alonso feels he hasn’t had the rub of the green. And for a driver of his abilities, he’s probably deserving more than he’s got out of his F1 career so far.

Is it fair for him to feel unlucky that the McLaren gamble didn’t pay off, too? You could argue that his career decisions are what really held him back. But was betting on Honda in 2015 really that much riskier than Lewis Hamilton’s move from McLaren to Mercedes in 2013? It’s not only about luck – but luck definitely plays a role in those choices.

Calling himself the “unluckiest in the world” might be a bit of a stretch. Still, it’s easy to forgive Fernando for thinking that way – especially in the heat of the moment.

Alonso sits out proceedings at Interlagos in 2015 after his McLaren ground to a halt in Q1

Photo by: XPB Images

Luck is the idol of the idle – Mark Mann-Bryans

You make your own luck, as the saying goes. And, when singling out 2025 as a year in which Alonso claims to be saddled with misfortune, the only place to really apportion blame is Aston Martin.

The team took a huge step backwards last season and has been unable to recover any significant ground this year, with the whole operation now seemingly in a holding pattern until the first Adrian Newey-designed Aston hits the track in 2026.

Alonso insists he does not believe in good luck trinkets, so no rabbit’s foot, rosary beads or four-leaf clovers will be in his cockpit for the remainder of his career, but even the Spaniard has acknowledged that Aston has very much put itself in a position to suffer trials and tribulations.

“I don’t believe in those things,” he said ahead of the Monaco GP. “So it’s what we deserve, probably. We’ve been unlucky many times, I think we’ve been uncompetitive, which is the unluckiest part of everything.

“When you’re more competitive, any strategy works, any safety car is a small problem, but it’s not the end of the day. When you are not competitive, anything that doesn’t go your way takes you out of the points.”

Aston did make gains at Imola, but the ‘bad luck’ struck during the race, leading to Alonso’s radio exchange. He will know that for his fortunes to change, his car also has to follow suit. Maybe the Alonso/Newey partnership could be all the luck he – and the team – needs.

Can Newey be the talismanic element to turn things around at Aston Martin?

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images via Getty Images

He’s had good fortune, too – Jacobo Vega

There’s something Alonso himself often reminds the media: in sport, as in life, luck tends to even itself out. And on this, I have to agree. I don’t believe Fernando is the unluckiest driver in history.

I know drivers who have had worse luck. Of course, he’s had his fair share of misfortune – especially at key moments while fighting for titles. Like the 2010 finale in Abu Dhabi, where a somewhat implausible incident triggered a safety car that turned the race upside down – then his team made a mistake more typical of amateurs than professionals.

There was the pile-up caused by Romain Grosjean that forced him to retire at Spa in 2012 – and that DNF proved to be title-defining. Or the fact that Sebastian Vettel scored points in the final race of the season with a car that had been badly damaged from first-lap contact with Bruno Senna.

Yet Alonso has also benefited from good fortune. Like when Michael Schumacher’s engine failed in Japan 2006, handing him the title on a silver platter. Or the 2010 race in South Korea, where his rivals dropped out one by one. Even some of Kimi Raikkonen’s retirements in 2005 played into Alonso’s hands, helping him secure his first title.

And as for radio messages… I think all drivers are aware they’re being listened to and use the opportunity to send messages when it suits them. Alonso is not the only one.

But just as he has a knack for delivering good soundbites in press conferences, the same happens on team radio – it’s an art not all drivers handle quite as well.

Schumacher’s engine failure at Suzuka in 2006 handed the title to Alonso

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

Chris Amon says “hold my beer” – Stuart Codling 

If there is such a thing as luck, good or bad, then there remains only one grand prix driver to anoint as the unluckiest: Chris Amon, of whom Mario Andretti once quipped, “If he was an undertaker, people would stop dying.”

He was just 19 when he made his GP debut at Monaco in 1963 – well, he drove Reg Parnell’s Lola-Climax in practice before being compelled to hand it over to team-mate Maurice Trintignant, whose car had expired. That set the tone for a season dogged by mechanical issues until a shunt in Italy left him nursing broken ribs.

Nevertheless, Amon continued to impress, and McLaren made an approach when the Parnell team was forced to drop him in favour of Richard Attwood as the price of taking a BRM engine supply.

Unfortunately, McLaren faced headwinds getting just one car to the F1 grid through 1966 so Amon had to look elsewhere, but missed out on an open seat at Cooper because 1964 champion John Surtees had walked out on Ferrari and was now on the market.

Amon joined Ferrari in 1967. Four podiums followed that season but as Ferrari’s fortunes headed south, so too did Amon’s mojo.

Had he stuck it out, he might have been fighting Jochen Rindt for the title in 1970 but, despairing over the flat-12 engine’s unreliability, he left – for March, another bad idea. Ditto the sonorous but not always quick Matras that followed; he should have won the 1972 French GP but picked up a puncture…

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Amon was leading in France in ’72 when a puncture intervened

Photo by: David Phipps