“Being a Formula 1 driver means that you are always at risk. Being a racing driver means racing with other people. And if you no longer go for a gap that exists, you are no longer a racing driver, because we are competing. We are competing to win. And the main motivation for all of us is to compete for victory, not to finish third, fourth, fifth or sixth. I race to win for as long as I feel it is possible. Do you sometimes make mistakes? Of course. It is impossible to get it right every time. But I am built to race to win, as long as I feel I am doing it in the right way.”
Ayrton Senna, speaking to Sir Jackie Stewart at the 1990 Australian Grand Prix.
In Formula 1, risk is not an anomaly that needs to be justified afterwards. It is part of the very essence of the activity. Ayrton Senna expressed that with absolute clarity. Anyone who takes to the track accepts living permanently on the edge, searching for a gap even when conditions are less than ideal and pushing to the limit because competition only exists if the goal is to win. Not to preserve positions. Not to finish third, fourth or fifth. To win.
Viewed through that lens, some of the apologies that followed the Azerbaijan Grand Prix can be interpreted not as complete acceptance of responsibility, but as attempts to soften the very nature of the profession.
Franco Colapinto’s apology and ‘being out of control’ as an explanation
At the Safety Car restart, Franco Colapinto locked his wheels on the inside of Turn 1, lost grip and hit Pierre Gasly, with Lando Norris also taken out of the race as a consequence. Three cars were eliminated, crucial points disappeared for Alpine and a weekend that could have produced a double points finish was reduced to ruins.
The comments that followed clearly expressed an intention to apologise, but their content was more ambiguous: “big mistake”, “completely out of control”, “cold tyres and brakes”, “there wasn’t much I could do”. Franco Colapinto apologised to his team-mate, his team and Lando Norris. The admission of error was there. What was missing, however, was full acceptance of the competitive logic described by Ayrton Senna.
A driver knows that temperatures are never perfect at a restart, that space becomes tighter and that there is always a risk of locking the brakes. Trying to gain a position in precisely those circumstances is part of what defines the profession.
When the outcome is negative, attributing it almost entirely to external factors such as being “out of control” or saying that there was “not much that could be done” risks turning acceptance of that risk into a technical excuse.
The mistake remains human and, as Ayrton Senna himself acknowledged, it is impossible to get every decision right. But presenting an error as an almost inevitable consequence of difficult conditions creates distance from the responsibility a driver assumes at the very moment they decide to push.
Arvid Lindblad’s apology: ‘There wasn’t much I could do’
Only a few metres behind, during the same restart, Racing Bulls driver Arvid Lindblad made contact with team-mate Liam Lawson, seriously damaging Liam Lawson’s car and compromising his race.
Arvid Lindblad apologised both over the radio and in person, in front of the cameras. He explained the chaos of the restart, the repeated acceleration and braking, another car moving under braking and the difficulties of managing the battery. He ultimately concluded that “there wasn’t much I could do”.
Again, the formal apology was there. What remained absent was an acknowledgement that a racing driver always operates with limited space, unpredictable decisions from others and a high level of risk.
Using “there wasn’t much I could do” as the main justification risks reducing the incident to a chain of external circumstances, diminishing the importance of the competitive decision to attempt a move at a moment when the field was at maximum compression.
Ayrton Senna never denied that mistakes happen. What he rejected was the idea that a mistake could somehow be presented as something separate from the very nature of competition.
The difference between an apology and responsibility in Formula 1
Apologies are necessary when a driver eliminates a team-mate or rival. They become even more important when an incident wipes out the points potential of an entire team.
What can make those apologies feel incomplete when compared with the philosophy expressed by Ayrton Senna is the tendency to place the mistake outside the driver’s own decision-making: cold tyres, chaos, insufficient space or the impossibility of doing anything differently.
According to that view of racing, a driver understands that risk is permanent, that gaps must be attacked and that sometimes mistakes will happen. Accepting the mistake without diluting it through mitigating circumstances means remaining faithful to the central motivation behind racing: competing to win.
When an apology repeatedly falls back on the idea that “there was nothing I could do”, there is a risk of weakening that principle. The profession can begin to look more like damage limitation than a relentless search for victory.
Ayrton Senna’s lesson remains demanding
The Azerbaijan Grand Prix produced two incidents involving team-mates and a chain of serious consequences. The apologies followed.
But Ayrton Senna’s lesson sets a more demanding standard: a racing driver competes with the intention of winning, accepts that risk is permanent and, when a mistake is made, recognises that the error is part of that same competitive choice rather than something that occurred in a separate moment of lost control.
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