The unavoidable element that all F1 drivers need to rise above

Formula 1 drivers may like to think that talent alone is enough to get them to the very top of the championship. But they know full well that there are factors beyond their control that can be just as important in helping them reach that summit.

However unfair it may seem, and however much they may not want to believe it, there is a big element of luck that can often make or break races, seasons and even careers.

For some, the tide of fortune is all about making sure you are in the right place at the right time. Few drivers, for example, may have wanted to be in Jenson Button’s shoes at the end of the 2008 season, when Honda announced it was pulling out of Formula 1 and there was a risk he would not be on the grid the following year. In the end, a host of factors conspired to ensure he had the best car on the grid for the start of 2009, and he duly did a brilliant job to secure one of the most memorable championship successes of the modern era.

Equally, drivers can find themselves thrust in to circumstances where, what appeared to be on the face of it a dream deal, ultimately did not produce the goods. Fernando Alonso’s return to McLaren was stymied by Honda initially underperforming, while Lewis Hamilton has found out at Mercedes this year the price that comes when a team doesn’t get its approach to new rules spot on.

Having the planets align as a driver does not just count for whole seasons, though, because it is equally relevant to individual days where things nudging your way can help deliver standout performances.

Everyone recalls the way that Max Verstappen produced a sensational win for Red Bull at his first appearance for the team at the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix. However, had Mercedes team-mates Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg not collided during their battle for the lead early on, then that afternoon would almost certainly have delivered just a podium finish. Still impressive, sure, but not as standout.

And would Nyck de Vries have a Formula 1 contract under his belt right now if Alex Albon had not been unlucky to be struck down with appendicitis at Monza – handing the Dutchman a golden opportunity to show what he could do? It is this unpredictable influence of factors outside of a drivers’ control that speaks a lot about Carlos Sainz’s 2022 season at Ferrari too.

De Vries got a lucky break into F1, but he made the most of his chance at the Italian GP

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

There has been the frustration of finding himself with the most competitive car of his career, at the very same time he found himself struggling with handling characteristics compared to his team-mate for the first time in his career. But there were also some cruel moments of misfortune where, just when he didn’t need the rug being pulled from beneath him, he found it all taken away.

Nothing highlights this more than the Australian Grand Prix when Fernando Alonso’s exit into the crash barriers in Q3 wrecked Sainz’s first effort just seconds before he crossed the line, and contributed to him starting down in ninth on Sunday. In his bid to try to make swift progress early on to recover, with team-mate Charles Leclerc starting from pole position, Sainz got caught up battling in traffic and spun out.

That DNF left him 38 points behind Leclerc in the standings, and only served to increase the pressure for the next race at Imola – where he was left with another no-score after getting tangled with Daniel Ricciardo. Those two races firmly took the momentum out of his season.

"I felt like this season I never really managed to get into a momentum of good results like I used to in the past" Carlos Sainz

Speaking to Sainz recently about the role of bad luck, he acknowledges that it can be extremely cruel at times. However, he points out that you cannot avoid bad luck happening, and you need to deal with it.

“When you think about it, there's so many things that need to go right over a season,” he said as we discussed the Australia and Imola disappointments.

“That example that you just put is a great example. If I wouldn't have started at the back in Australia, I wouldn't be probably doing a mistake in battling for P10 or P11. This wouldn't have put me under so much pressure in Imola.

“I really believe that a driver through a year is forced into pressure situations or into inconvenience, and it's how you react to them. And I felt like that at the beginning of the year, because I wasn't at home with the car and I wasn't driving the way I liked probably. I didn't react as well under the circumstances as I used to do in the past, and I made a couple of mistakes which cost me a lot in the championship.

Sainz's Australia gravel trip was symptomatic of his early misfortune

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

“Imola to be fair was Daniel's mistake, not my mistake, but I lost a lot of points and this made me be on the back foot for all races at the beginning of the year. Then I got into a really good run of races after Canada and Silverstone. I was about to finish P2 in Austria with a pace that was equal to Charles the whole race and I had another zero, and you lose these 18 points. It's like starting again.

“So if anything I felt like this season I never really managed to get into a momentum of good results like I used to in the past.”

The ups and downs that fortune throws at drivers is certainly something that cannot be predicted, and may unfairly affect some more than others on specific days. But one truth from it is that it actually shows why the best will still rise to the top.

Sure, some wins can be helped by good luck; equally, some great successes can be snatched away without it. But the random nature of fortune ultimately shows why drivers need to be at their best all the time. It’s only through being on their A-game every weekend that drivers minimise the damage of any woe, and come home laughing when it’s the others who endure a heady dose of misfortune.

For there are days in a drivers’ career – just look at Verstappen at Spain in 2016, or De Vries at Monza and even Sainz at this year’s British Grand Prix – where the stars aligned just enough for them to earn the full rewards on an afternoon where things could have been so very different. But on each occasion they’ve had to deliver enough to get themselves into a position where fickle fortune made the difference. Luck is never everything.

It’s the perfect proof that, as golfer Gary Player once famously said: “The harder you work, the luckier you get.”

Sainz earned a slice of good fortune with his British Grand Prix win

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images