Number twos

I disagree with that completely. The reality is that Checo is actually the perfect number two for Max. I was delighted when they signed him up at a time when his career looked on the rocks after getting the boot from Racing Point (now Aston Martin). He’s at an age and stage in life where he knows who he is and is going to be more comfortable being beaten by Max than most other drivers on the grid.

Red Bull has given him the opportunity to take five Grand Prix wins and get a podium at his home race for which I know he is grateful. Sure, there was a bit of needle last year when he supposedly caused a red flag on purpose in qualifying at Monaco which denied Max a chance to get pole, but Leclerc was going to be faster than everyone anyway. At the end of the day, Red Bull and Max can and should see the bigger picture – it’s been a largely one-sided and relatively low stress situation.

Looking after the number two driver is actually a smart thing for the lead driver to do. The late, great Ayrton Senna had a reputation for being a ruthless and hard team leader, but at Suzuka in 1991 he pulled over to allow teammate Gerhard Berger to take the victory as a thank you to his number two and, more crucially, ensure his support for the future. Nigel Mansell did the same for Ricardo Patrese in Monza the following year, although the Italian ended up dropping out of the race later on.

At the moment, Max is operating on such a level (in the quickest car, of course) that Red Bull doesn’t really need Checo to help him like in 2021. Frankly, Max is on course to score enough points to win the constructors’ championship for Red Bull all by himself this year! But if Mercedes and Ferrari get their acts together for next season, the Mexican will have to raise his game, because both those teams have very strong driver pairings.

Is Perez the perfect number two driver? I guess nobody really likes that label but you’d have to say he’s ticking most of the boxes. In years gone by, we’ve seen several drivers who have played key supporting roles. For a team, I think the absolute best case is if they have a title contender and then another driver who is just a couple of tenths shy in qualifying, has about 30 per cent fewer points than the team leader mid-way through the season so they’re forced into a supporting role, yet is fast enough to pick up the odd win for the team if there’s ever a problem for the number one car.

The Schumacher era at Ferrari is probably the most glaring example of a clearly defined role for the second driver in the team. Eddie Irvine was an incredibly compliant number two who was able to support Michael at key moments like in Suzuka in 1997 when he needed to take points off Jacques Villeneuve, or in 1999 when he took up the Ferrari title charge after Michael broke his leg at Silverstone. However, he was never quite close enough to Michael in a way that David Coulthard was to Mika Hakkinen during that era. DC had plenty of weekends where he was able to make it a three-way fight and be a real nuisance to Michael, but he wasn’t quite consistently quick enough to beat Mika between 1998 and 2000 when the McLaren was a title contender.

David has talked openly about how mentally difficult it was for him to see that Ron Dennis openly favoured Mika although there wasn’t officially a hierarchy like there was at Ferrari. It really is a credit to his professionalism that he managed to put that aside and still play the supporting role when it was needed.

Unlike his predecessor Eddie Irvine, or successor Felipe Massa, Rubens Barrichello always seemed to be a very reluctant number two to Michael Schumacher. He was probably closer in pace to Michael in comparison to Irvine and every year he would talk about fighting for the title, something we knew was never really going to be allowed to happen. His genuine anger at being forced to give up his position to Michael Schumacher two years on the trot in Austria seemed to suggest that it was a phone call he wasn’t expecting, even though the rest of the planet was.

Team orders for a supporting driver have always been a part of the sport but they’ve needed a compliant and willing driver to actually follow them. If we go way back to 1955, Stirling Moss sat dutifully behind Juan Manuel Fangio while cannily learning his craft when following the maestro. Peter Collins gave up his chance to be World Champion by handing his car over to Ferrari teammate Fangio.

In 1978 Ronnie Peterson was more than happy to assist Mario Andretti’s title bid in the Lotus 79 and the following year the incredibly fast yet inexperienced Gilles Villeneuve played the supporting role to Jody Scheckter to perfection, acting as a rear gunner as the South African clinched his world title on the Scuderia’s home ground in Monza. Sadly Gilles didn’t have the same level of support from Didier Pironi in the controversial San Marino Grand Prix in 1982, a race and period immortalised in Villeneuve Pironi, the brilliant documentary that came out earlier this year.

Every driver on the planet wants to be a team leader and have the focus of the team’s effort on them. In most cases, that status is earned in a meritocratic way by simply being faster than the other driver. Sometimes you just have to accept that being a number two to one of the greatest talents the sport has ever seen is the reality of your situation. And realise that there is no shame in that at all.