"After the race, driver Fred Bloggs said, 'We were very unlucky today. I got stuck behind a couple of tail-enders for a few laps, and then the really bad luck came when my tyre blew and I went off.'"

Luck. Good luck; bad luck.

There was poor old Fred, and he just had bad luck all day. Or did he?

Let's start with the back-markers. If Fred was as good as he obviously thinks he is, then he would have been able to get past those tail-enders. Or maybe it was the car? Perhaps the engine wasn't quite right because the programmer had a hang-over the morning he changed a line of the code in the engine management program.

And then there was the tyre - this is where my fun really starts! By now you all know that I am not an engineer of any sort, so forgive me if this chain of events misses some vital step and seems simplistic.

We'll begin at the end - the moment the car leaves the pit after getting a new set of tyres put on. The wheel spins as the driver accelerates out. There were at least three guys involved in changing the tyre. There was the warmer on it. There was the putting of the tyre on the wheel. The storage. The transportation from the factory to a store to the track. The making of the tyre. The making of the moulding machine. The manufacture of the compound. The research into the compound.

At every stage of the entire process, we assume that everyone has done their job perfectly, and performed it in exactly the manner they should. But what if, say, one of the engineers at the factory where they make the compound - right back at the beginning of the entire process - had a headache and allowed just 0.00001% more carbon to get into the tyre than was supposed to?

All the way through, at every stage of the entire process, there were humans involved. And, let's face it, we humans just can't deliberately do exactly the same thing in exactly the same way two times in a row - there's always some difference.

The difference may be so small that it may only take effect in a very particular (and peculiar) set of circumstances, but it is still there. Try it. Try and do the same thing exactly the same way twice in succession. I'll bet you can't. Even if you think you've got them both exactly the same, there will be some minuscule differences somewhere along the line.

And then there's that famous - or should it be "infamous" - post-race comment: "We were let down by a $2.00 part, it was just bad luck."

Rubbish! Somewhere along the line there was a (human) flaw in design which eventually resulted in one of those parts failing. Quite where the flaw originated could be almost impossible to detect. It could have been in the design of the part itself. Or in the design of the machine that made the part. Or in the design of a part in the machine that made the part. Or ...

Some of you might say that you agree with the basis of what I've said so far, but that you would disagree totally when it comes to something like the weather.

Sorry, but while I would agree that there is currently nothing we humans can do to control local weather patterns, we certainly can control our reactions to the weather. Put simply, if it starts to rain, and I have the option, I go inside. (Five years as a sub-teen at a British boarding school, with cold showers every morning, has left me with a distinct aversion to cold water that comes from above!)

So, if you as a driver are incapable of handling a racing car at 200kph, then you must slow down to the level where you can control the car. If that means that you are going so slowly either that everyone else is passing you, or that you have stopped, then so be it.

"What about a sudden downpour?" There is nothing that says that you can't keep your eyes open, and watch the skyes. Then you'll be ready for the rain. Or it may be that the circuit where you're racing (Spa, for example), has a reputation for changeable weather. But, you should know that, and be prepared mentally and physically for rapidly changing conditions.

Similarly, you should keep your eyes open in front of you for the other drivers in the race. If one of them suddenly swerves off, and you hit them on the way through, perhaps you were a bit too close - or your reaction time is not good enough for you to be participating at that particular level?

Then there's the situation where you come flying around a corner to find that there's a crash right in front of you, and you simply have no time to react. Apart from the driver that caused the crash, there's also human error in the fact that the marshals didn't warn you appropriately ... or perhaps that you failed to keep your eyes open for any flags.

So, basically, there's no such thing as "luck" in motor racing. It all comes down to "preparation". The preparation of the car, the preparation of the crew, and the preparation of the driver. And the one consistent thread throughout all that? Humans - again!

"Luck" when you look at it objectively from a motor racing context, is really the excuse that we humans use when we can't find someone or something to blame.

However, there is a saving grace to all this. Just think how incredibly boring motor racing (and life) would be if we humans could do things in exactly the same way every time. It's our very inability to do that, that makes motor racing so interesting and always new.

But that's just me.

(With thanks to Michael Hollander)