Being spanked by your tem-mate does not mean he is unlucky. Unless you mean he is unlucky to be in the same team as Vettel?
I'd say Bruno Senna was tbh, should've been sitting in the Brawn for his F1 debut, but Barricello did a u-turn, and instead he ended up having his debut in an HRT, I don;t think things get much worse (unless your Nick H.)
No, the only time he was really unlucky was in 2008. Engine problems cost him the world championship, but everyone conveniently forgets about them. Out of current drivers, I would say Sutil is the unluckiest, especially when Kimi was around.
I am afraid that's part of racing. People need to stop handing a shopping list of excuses. The person who wins the world championship deserves it most because they have scored the most points. Whether it was unfair or not they have scored the most points(except if there was team orders).
People also forget about the mistakes Massa made, such as taking out the fuel rig in Singapore. Mistake like that cost him the WDC. Everyone gets mechanical failures at some stage, that's just what happens when you have machines that are on the edge of maximum performance. However, ripping out a fuel rig (for example) is something that can't be blamed on 'bad luck'. Every driver gets their share of bad/good luck. What makes the difference is if you manage to take advantage when things go your way.
Based on some of the weaker arguments that have been put forward, I'd say Nigel Mansell is one of the unluckiets drivers in F1. Denied the WDC in 1986, 1987 and 1991 by virtue of a tyre blowout in 1986 when cruising in the last race, dodgy reliability in 1987 that didn't affect his team-mate and a development semi-auto gearbox and a pit-stop calamity in 1991. So he should have been a 4 x WDC if it wasn't for his bad luck. Or is that just part of racing as some others have said? The above makes Massa and Webber's 'luck' look good.
As many will know, I'm not particularly keen on Mansell (in real life); but I think you have made a very valid point about his racing. 'Luck' is an unquantifiable thing really but like you ASChris, I don't think 'Our Nige' got a good roll of the dice. - - - For a moment - and not wishing to divert the conversation - perhaps it would be interesting to look at 'luck' from the other perspective? For instance: who has been the luckiest driver in F1? For me at least, this has a far easier answer than 'unluckiest', which I confess to finding too much of a challenge!
Although I was a Prost fan at that point, and didn;t particularly like Mansell either, I did think he was a bit unlucky in 86, still made me laugh though.
Luckiest driver has to be Nelson Piquet! Never has a driver benefitied so well from others misfortunes! And to get 3 x WDC's with it as well was just rubbing it in to the others.
I think that the luckiest moment of his career was also ironically his unluckiest! That horrific injury technically ended his career (but he survived thank god), he has never been the same driver since and I think Ferrari missed a trick in not choping him in at the time, the Badoare (spell?) and Fisi farce was embarrassing and they could have had a number of top drivers jump into that seat.
It showed loyalty that they stuck by him throughout that period and they should be respected for that. Renault have been very suportive of Kubicha and it will be interesting to see how they deal with that as he rehabilitates and whether he can get back to how good he was and what he was likely to achieve in the sport.
I think Hamilton is one of the luckiest drivers currently in this sport. It's not his racing that's lucky, it's the fact that he's been groomed for McLaren since he was 11 years old and didn't have to go through the junior teams to get there. But you could see this as both blessing and curse in that although he immediately staked his claim at McLaren, he didn't gain the prior experience from a slower team like every other successful driver and learn what the mindset of a midfield driver like Kobayashi is. Make your own decisions on how you feel about that as you wish. Without doubt, currently the luckiest driver is Vettel. Groomed for Red Bull, obviously made a good show for Toro Rosso, and transferred to the senior Red Bull team with no clue that Red Bull could be competitive the following year. Luckily for him, they were. He also becomes lucky in his races . Take the red flag scenario in Monaco for example. It showed for him at the right time, allowed him to change his tyres for free and rob us of a great finish to the race. I think he also won the championship last year on, not necessarily good luck for him, but more like bad luck for Alonso and Webber. I thought for sure if Webber couldn't have gotten ahead of Alonso, Fernando would have the championship for sure, but both strategies just didn't work out for them. Again, just my view.
I'm glad you mentioned that. It was actually the mechanic's fault, he gave massa the all clear, and massa set off, assuming that the stop went well. I'm not sure how he is to blame for a mechanic pressing a button a little too early.
ferrari had that crappy traffic light system in place of a regular lollipop man if i remember correctly
Indeed you are right. Well, I'm always happy to be corrected on things I've gotten wrong. However, it doesn't change the fact that Massa made too many mistakes in 2008. Spinning out of Malaysia, finishing 2 laps down at Silverstone after constantly spinning, earning a drive through for crashing into Hamilton at Fuji etc. It's also worth remembering that in Australia, before Massa retired with engine trouble, he'd already crashed at the 1st corner on lap 1 (which put him down the order) and he then had that tussle with Coulthard. In short, he's just not the finished article. He can/could perform on his day - some of his overtakes were great that year, like on Webber in Fuji down the pit straight - but he just doesn't seem have that last 1% that others do. I honestly hope that when he finally sees sense and moves on from Ferrari (as they have clearly moved on from him), he regains some of his fiery racing spirit. Alas, I find it unlikely that this will happen.
