2017 Azerbaijan Grand Prix

Everything that went wrong for Daniel Ricciardo – hitting the wall in Q3, getting his Red Bull’s brake ducts blocked with debris in the early laps – were merely blessings in disguise. What they did, in combination with typically brave and incisive moves upon each of the restarts, was win him the race. A random, crazy race with three safety cars, a bit of road rage from the championship leader Sebastian Vettel against his chief rival Lewis Hamilton that lost him the win (as Hamilton later had an unscheduled stop to rectify a loose headrest) and a collision between the two Force India drivers that may in hindsight have lost them a 1-2. Pipped for second place on the line by a recovering Valtteri Bottas (who had been a solid last and a whole lap down at one point), was a remarkable result for the Williams rookie Lance Stroll, another teenage podium finisher just a year after the first.

This wasn’t a race of strategy or performance but a random one of chance where it was all about playing well the cards you’d been dealt. Ricciardo and Stroll played theirs perfectly on a day when many did not. Bottas used the crash-bang circumstances to rescue his day from his own lap one misjudgement. He was, in fact, one of several who might have won, but didn’t either because of misfortune (Hamilton, Räikkönen, Sergio Pérez, Max Verstappen, Felipe Massa) or misjudgement (Vettel, Bottas, Esteban Ocon).