It is often suggested that while misfortune such as a car failure or a shunt may ruin one race for a driver, over a season of more than 20 rounds that tends to even out. In reality this is seldom the case, and some drivers end up suffering more bad luck than their rivals during a championship.
In typical style, Fernando Alonso openly lamented his misfortune as his second season at Alpine drew to a close late last year. “It’s just amazing that only one or two cars retire at every race and it’s always car 14,” he remarked following one retirement.
As far as his own team goes, Alonso appears to have had a point: Esteban Ocon did not encounter as many problems on the other side of the garage. But what about the rest of the 20-car field? Was anyone else as ill-served by fortune but less vocal about it?
To look back over the 2022 season and find the unluckiest drivers on the grid, it’s important to go beyond just what happens on race day. Problems that arise in practice can have a major knock-on effect for a driver’s weekend, while something going wrong in qualifying could ruin a driver’s chances before the race has even begun.
So to assess how unlucky the field is, RaceFans looked back over all 22 race weekends to see how many times each driver experienced a significant problem in any session that affected them negatively that could reasonably be considered as out of their control. That includes any car problems that limited running, slowed them down or led to retirement.
Furthermore, the tally counted any damage sustained in collisions where the other driver involved was deemed responsible or where they were an innocent third party (racing incidents between two drivers where no further action was taken are not included). Any rounds in which the driver served a power unit penalty of some kind and significantly long pit stops were also included.
Anything where a driver has a reasonable degree of control over what happened, such as hitting the wall or suffering damage as a result of a collision where the driver shared a level of responsibility, is not counted. Further, any situation where a driver lost out due a Safety Car or a poor strategy decision will be considered as just part of the sport.
Our analysis indicates five drivers had the most conspicuously poor fortune during 2022, and at least one can consider himself about as unlucky as Alonso was.
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Kevin Magnussen
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