With an excellent, though sadly thwarted, run at Monaco, Jarno Trulli's 2006 season showed signs of life for the first time. If it was going to happen anywhere, it was always going to be here. Monte Carlo, with its ultimate demand for precision and, just as importantly, full commitment to precision, is tailor-made to Jarno's very individualistic approach.
Not only does he have a huge natural talent, he "fears failure less than the others" (his words), as he explained in an interview with our sister publication F1 Racing. This is a fascinating concept, and it tallies so well with trackside observations and apparent anomalies in his performances. At its most fundamental level, failure for a racing driver is being slow. But no-one in F1 is slow. That fear doesn't really apply.
Moving up the pyramid, the next definition of failure is losing control of the car and crashing. That bent piece of junk he's just creamed into the barriers represents the most highly visible evidence imaginable of a weakness.
That's why we so often see drivers walking quickly away from a wreck without a backward glance - they sub-consciously want to distance themselves from that failure. Frequently they keep their helmets on while they're walking away too, so their identity is better protected from association with the failure.