Lots Are Cast on Wheels of (Fast) Fortune Bernie Ecclestone, the Formula One promoter and former team owner, once said that if a team owner had a driver who kept having bad luck, he should fire him. Mario Andretti, a former world champion, once said of his fellow driver Chris Amon, often considered one of the best drivers never to win a Grand Prix, that he was so unlucky that "if he became an undertaker, people would stop dying." Amon drove for Ferrari from 1967 to 1969 and never won a race. Fortunately, his team owner, Enzo Ferrari, did not believe in luck. "Bad luck doesn't exist," Ferrari once said. There is only what we couldn't or we hadn't been able to foresee. Andretti himself was the subject of a "bad luck" scenario. He became famous by winning the prestigious Indianapolis 500 race in 1969, and then, in 28 subsequent attempts, he never won it again, although he came close several times. His bad luck there became known as "Andretti Luck." As Formula One prepares for the British Grand Prix this weekend at Silverstone, in a season where the speeds of rival teams" cars have been closer than ever and with seven drivers winning the first eight races, luck has become a topic of conversation again. But as ever in racing, luck is more often considered bad than good. "Luck you can't control, so we don't spend any time thinking about that," said Sam Michael, the sporting director at the McLaren Mercedes team. Normally when you have gained from luck you talk about what a great job you have done and all the great decisive decisions. The main story this season to do with luck, however, involves the most successful racing driver in Formula One history. The multiple world champion Michael Schumacher, who returned to Formula One in 2010 after three years retirement, scored his first podium finish since his return to racing at the European Grand Prix at Valencia two weeks ago, at the age of 43. Before that, his 2012 season had been plagued by car breakdowns, penalties and accidents. In the first seven races, he scored only 2 points, compared to 67 by his Mercedes teammate, Nico Rosberg, who has finished every race this year. The long string of bad luck for Schumacher included four car breakdowns in seven races and an accident he was judged to have caused in another, which meant that even though he scored the pole position in the following race, at the prestigious Monaco Grand Prix, where the pole is vital to victory, he had to serve a penalty of being moved five spots back on the grid for having caused the accident at the previous race. That his luck may have turned was demonstrated in Valencia, where he finished third. His finish happened so quickly and luckily - based on accidents further up the pack - that he was not aware of his place as he crossed the line. After the race, he was then examined by race stewards for having driven through a yellow-flag caution zone during an accident with his rear wing open for a power boost, which is illegal. He risked a post-race time penalty that would have cost him his podium. The stewards judged that Schumacher had considerably slowed down during the yellow-flag period, as the rules require, and so the open wing was irrelevant and he was not penalized. Finally, luck seemed to go his way. Before the race, however, he had been asked what he thought about his bad luck. "It is just coincidence that it seems to happen on my car," he said. But I have been around long enough to know that those are prototype cars and no matter how good a job you do still you can have problems like we experience right now. "I know it's the nature of Formula One and I trust my guys 100 percent and if something fails after that, it is just fate," Schumacher added. None of the issues that we have had is to do with anything you can change or influence as a driver, unless you keep the car in the garage - that is one solution. Norbert Haug, one of his Mercedes team directors, said that he was satisfied that Schumacher was not responsible for all the bad luck he has had this year. "Well, things like that happen," he said. I really feel sorry for Michael. We need to have a calm and concentrated approach and I think all my colleagues here have been through phases like that. That happens in Formula One if you're pushing and on the limit. "Michael is a perfect team player," Haug added, "and I would have every understanding if he would be critical but he never is. He could complain and say, "I should have as many points as Nico," or stuff like that, but you never hear that. He's a professional. Indeed, in a sport where every aspect of a car and driver's preparation is studied to the smallest detail, there is little room for the sense of good or bad luck in a driver's or team's mind. "I think everyone will say through their career they have had some bad luck and some good luck, and some guys maybe will have more than another," said Daniel Ricciardo, a driver at the Toro Rosso team. "I guess you create your own luck," he added. I don't believe in someone always having the short end of the straw. You are obviously putting yourself in that position to be vulnerable for it. Definitely you can be unlucky sometimes. Sebastian Vettel driving a Red Bull and Romain Grosjean driving a Lotus would agree with that. Just as Schumacher's luck turned at the European Grand Prix, Vettel and Grosjean both suffered the same engine breakdown and lost a race they might have won. Vettel had led from the start before the alternator of his Renault engine overheated and the engine stopped. Shortly after that, Grosjean was in second place when the alternator of his Renault engine also overheated and he retired. At the British Grand Prix this weekend, Jenson Button, an Englishman who has won 13 races in his career and has had several bad races this year, hopes his luck will change. He has never won his home race, or even finished on the podium; his highest placing is fourth. "I wouldn't say it's a jinx," he said. I think we've just been unlucky at times and not had the car at other times.