Other Sports

Prost played tennis seriously and well throughout his career. He was known in the paddock as one of the stronger tennis players among F1 drivers, and the sport remained a fixture of his off-track life after retirement. He has spoken about tennis as a strategic game that appeals to the same analytical part of his mind that made him effective in racing.

Jones won the 1980 Formula 1 world championship with Williams, the team's first drivers' title, taking five race wins that season in a car that was among the most competitive of the ground-effect era. It remains the high point of a career built on consistent, hard-nosed racecraft rather than spectacular one-off performances.

Sainz works with a dedicated fitness team and takes physical preparation extremely seriously. He has spoken about the specific physical demands of different circuits — particularly high-G tracks like Bahrain and Silverstone — and how training must be circuit-specific. He is consistently among the drivers identified by sports scientists as particularly well-prepared.

Hulme won the 1967 Formula 1 world championship driving for Brabham, edging out his own team boss and teammate Jack Brabham in a close-fought season — a rare case of a driver beating the team owner himself to the title in the same car.

Hulme suffered a fatal heart attack while driving a BMW M3 in the 1992 Bathurst 1000 touring car race in Australia. Even in his final moments, he managed to bring the car safely to a stop at the side of the track rather than crashing, a detail widely remembered as characteristic of his composed, professional approach to driving right until the very end.

When Michael Schumacher broke his leg in a crash at the 1999 British Grand Prix, Irvine was elevated from supporting driver to Ferrari's lead title contender for the rest of the season. He won four grands prix that year and went into the final round with a genuine chance of the championship, ultimately finishing runner-up to Mika Häkkinen by two points — the closest Irvine came to winning a world title.

Ocon has spoken about French football with genuine enthusiasm. He follows international football closely, particularly the French national team, and has attended matches when available. His passion for football is genuine rather than positioned — he has been known to engage in detailed tactical conversations about the sport.

Like many Brazilian sportsmen, Massa maintains a deep personal connection to football, following the sport closely and speaking often about his allegiances within Brazil's football culture. The connection between Brazilian motorsport stars and football fandom runs deep in the country's broader sporting culture, and Massa has remained an engaged, visible fan well beyond his own racing career.

Alonso has completed Ironman triathlons — the full 3.8km swim, 180km cycle, and 42km run. He approached the training with the same structure he brings to racing, hiring coaches and following strict preparation plans. He finished respectably for an amateur athlete, though 'amateur' feels like the wrong word for someone with his approach to physical preparation.

In 2020, Alonso entered the Dakar Rally (one of the world's most gruelling off-road races) with the Toyota Gazoo Racing team. On his first attempt at the event, he finished 13th overall and was consistently competitive against full-time rally-raid professionals. He won his class on multiple stages. He cited the Dakar as one of the hardest physical and mental challenges he'd faced.

Five years before Senna's fatal accident at the same circuit, Berger himself survived a violent, fiery crash during the 1989 San Marino Grand Prix at Imola's Tamburello corner, suffering burns to his hands but escaping otherwise unhurt. He returned to racing within a matter of weeks, a remarkably fast recovery given the severity of the accident.

Driving for Force India — a small team with a fraction of the budget of F1's front-runners — Fisichella qualified on pole for the 2009 Belgian Grand Prix in wet conditions, a genuinely stunning result that briefly made him a headline story across the sport. It remains one of the more unlikely pole positions in modern F1 history and directly led to his call-up by Ferrari weeks later.

Impressed by his form at Force India, Ferrari signed Fisichella to partner Kimi Räikkönen for the second half of the 2009 season, a rare mid-year switch to one of the sport's biggest teams. It was widely seen as both a reward for years of consistent, underrated performances and a reflection of how thin Ferrari's other options were at the time.

After leaving F1, Fisichella became a factory driver for Ferrari's endurance racing programme, winning the GTE class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2014 with AF Corse. It gave his career a genuinely successful second chapter in a completely different discipline, built on the same smooth, consistent driving style that had made him reliably competitive throughout his F1 years.

Fisichella's three F1 victories — with Jordan, Renault, and Spyker/Force India-linked machinery over the years — came for teams that were rarely genuine championship contenders, meaning each result required exceptional circumstances or exceptional driving. His longevity and consistency across thirteen F1 seasons, mostly outside the top teams, is often cited as more impressive than his win total alone suggests.

Hill won the Monaco Grand Prix a record five times, won the Indianapolis 500 in 1966 on just his second attempt, and won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1972 as part of a Matra crew. No other driver in history has won all three of these events, and the achievement is still referred to within motorsport as the 'Triple Crown' specifically because Hill is the only person to have completed it. Fernando Alonso has spent years of his own career explicitly chasing the same feat.

Stewart was good enough as a clay pigeon shooter to be considered for the British Olympic team in 1960. He described the sport as teaching him the patience, focus, and spatial awareness that later made him exceptionally smooth under pressure in a racing car. He continued shooting throughout his career and has said it was the first competitive discipline he mastered.

Ickx won the 24 Hours of Le Mans outright six times between 1969 and 1982, a record that stood for decades before eventually being surpassed, and one that established him as one of the greatest endurance racers of all time, alongside his Formula 1 career rather than instead of it.

Beyond circuit racing, Ickx won the gruelling Paris-Dakar Rally outright in 1983, driving for Mercedes-Benz across thousands of kilometres of some of the most demanding terrain in motorsport — a discipline entirely different from F1 or Le Mans, adding a further dimension to an already unusually broad career.

Ickx finished second in the Formula 1 drivers' championship in both 1969 and 1970, driving for Brabham and Ferrari respectively, without ever winning the title outright despite eight grand prix victories across his F1 career — making his endurance racing achievements, if anything, an even bigger part of his legacy than his F1 results.

Villeneuve competed for years in the Trophée Andros, a French ice-racing series held on purpose-built frozen circuits, and was consistently competitive at the front of the field. It was a discipline that rewarded exactly the kind of precise car control he'd built as a karting and Champ Car racer before F1, and one that let him keep racing seriously without the politics of a top-level F1 seat.

Trulli's sole F1 victory came at Monaco in 2004, a circuit where overtaking is notoriously difficult — meaning his qualifying pace and ability to control a race from the front, rather than defend against faster cars in clean air, was exactly suited to the challenge. It remains the standout result of his career and one of the more popular Monaco wins with fans given how long he'd been racing without one.

Button began triathlon training during his F1 career as a way of maintaining fitness, but it became a genuine passion. He has completed full Ironman events — 3.8km swim, 180km bike, 42km run — finishing in times that would be respectable for a dedicated amateur athlete rather than someone with triathlon as a sideline. He has spoken about triathlon as something that gives him the competitive outlet and structured challenge he misses from racing.

After his F1 career, Button competed in the Japanese Super GT championship with Honda. He embraced Japanese culture enthusiastically — learning phrases, attending local events, and speaking warmly about the experience. His time in Japan was well-received locally, and he became something of a celebrity figure beyond the motorsport world there.

Rindt maintained an active Formula 2 racing programme throughout much of his career, entering events in the junior category even while established as a top-line Formula 1 driver, largely out of genuine enjoyment of competitive racing rather than any career necessity. He was highly successful in F2 as well, and the extra racing mileage was, by some accounts, part of what honed the fearless reflexes that defined his F1 driving.

Surtees won world titles in the 350cc and 500cc motorcycle grand prix classes with MV Agusta through the 1950s, becoming one of the dominant riders of his era, before deliberately switching to car racing in 1960. His transition worked spectacularly well: within four years he had also won the Formula 1 world championship with Ferrari in 1964 — a two-wheel-to-four-wheel double that has never been repeated.

In a 1988 Formula 3000 race at Brands Hatch, Herbert was involved in a violent crash that crushed and severely damaged both his legs and ankles. The injuries were serious enough that doctors were unsure he would ever walk normally again, let alone return to competitive racing. He raced in Formula 1 for the first time less than a year later, still not fully recovered, in a remarkable display of both recovery and willpower.

Herbert won the 1991 24 Hours of Le Mans outright driving a Mazda 787B, a car powered by an unconventional rotary engine rather than the piston engines used by every other competitive entry. It remains, to date, the only overall Le Mans victory ever achieved by a car with a rotary engine — a genuinely unique result in the race's long history, and one Herbert has said he was too physically exhausted at the finish to fully appreciate at the time.

Herbert's three F1 victories — for Benetton, Sauber, and Stewart across the 1990s — all came in cars that weren't among the fastest on the grid for most of a given season, meaning each win required a mix of reliability, opportunism, and races where faster rivals faltered. Given the severity of his 1988 injuries, simply having the career he did is often considered as remarkable as any individual result.

Montoya won the Indianapolis 500 in 2000 as a rookie, then again in 2015 after full careers in Formula 1 and NASCAR in between — a gap of fifteen years between his two victories in one of motorsport's most prestigious races. Very few drivers in history have returned to a discipline after that long an absence and won at the highest level.

After leaving F1 in 2006, Montoya moved to NASCAR, racing full-time for Chip Ganassi Racing and becoming one of the highest-profile international drivers to attempt the switch. He won twice at the Cup Series level, including on a road course, in a discipline built around oval racing and a very different driving style to anything he'd done in F1 or IndyCar.

Montoya's endurance racing record includes several overall victories at the Rolex 24 at Daytona, one of sportscar racing's most demanding events, adding to a resume that already included F1 wins, an Indy 500, and NASCAR victories — a genuine cross-discipline record matched by very few drivers of his generation.

Before establishing himself in Formula 1, Rosberg competed successfully in feeder categories including Formula Vee and Formula Super Vee, winning championships in both as he worked his way up the motorsport ladder. This grounding in competitive, lower-budget racing shaped the resourceful, hard-nosed approach that characterised his entire career, including his eventual title-winning season with a comparatively underfunded Williams team.

When Magnussen was not retained by Haas at the end of 2020, he competed in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship rather than waiting for an F1 opportunity. The choice was characteristic: he preferred to be racing than to be available. His performances were strong enough to reinforce his standing as a professional, and Haas recalled him in 2022 when Nikita Mazepin's contract was terminated following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Before committing fully to car racing, Stroll was a competitive alpine skier who trained with serious intent. He was good enough to be considered a genuine prospect and trained at facilities used by national-level athletes. The ski racing background gave him exceptional car control on unpredictable surfaces — a physical skill that translates directly to racing on circuits with varying grip levels.

Andretti's Indianapolis 500 win came in 1969, his Daytona 500 victory in 1967, and his Formula 1 World Championship in 1978 — a spread of achievement across open-wheel, stock car, and international road racing that no other driver in history has matched. He also won championships in USAC and IndyCar competition across a career that stretched over three decades, giving him a claim to being the most versatile champion American motorsport has produced.

Webber competed in Ironman triathlons during his F1 career and has continued in triathlon and endurance sport since retiring from single-seaters. The discipline required — long-distance swimming, cycling, and running combined in a single event — appealed to his competitive instinct and his preference for sports that test sustained effort rather than explosive performance. He has spoken about the mental parallels between endurance sport and racing.

Schumacher's love of football was genuine and longstanding. He organised regular football matches among F1 drivers and team personnel throughout his career, and was a good enough player to hold his own in serious amateur games. He broke his leg in a football match before the 1999 season, though the injury that subsequently damaged his championship that year came from a crash at Silverstone. He was a supporter of FC Cologne and played football as both recreation and serious fitness training.

While his F1 career has been podium-free, Hülkenberg has one of the great endurance racing achievements to his name. He won the 2015 24 Hours of Le Mans driving for Porsche, co-driving with Nick Tandy and Earl Bamber. Winning Le Mans — one of the most demanding and prestigious events in motorsport — while simultaneously competing in Formula 1 is an extraordinary achievement. He remains one of the very few active drivers to have won both a major endurance race and competed in F1.

When Mansell's troubled relationship with Williams came to a head and he left F1 after 1992, he signed with Newman Haas Racing in IndyCar. He won the 1993 CART championship in his very first season in the series, becoming the only driver in history to hold both the F1 World Championship and the CART title simultaneously. American fans adored him immediately; he was everything they wanted in a racing driver.

Golf has been Mansell's primary sporting passion since his racing career. He achieved a scratch handicap (the highest level of amateur play) and has spoken about golf with the same intensity he brought to racing. He has played in celebrity pro-am events with professional golfers and views the sport as a genuine competitive pursuit rather than a casual hobby.

Schumacher's best years came at Williams in the early 2000s, where he was a genuine points-scoring, occasionally race-winning presence in a competitive car, before a lengthy and largely winless spell at Toyota closed out his F1 career. Six wins across a full decade in the sport is a solid, if inevitably overshadowed, professional record.

When Patrese retired at the end of 1993, his 256 grand prix starts were more than any driver in F1 history to that point, a record built across seventeen seasons and six different teams. It reflected both remarkable longevity and durability in an era when serious injuries ended many careers far earlier.

Patrese's best championship finish came in 1992, driving for a dominant Williams team alongside Nigel Mansell, who won the title that year in one of the most one-sided championship seasons of the era. Being genuinely competitive against a teammate having one of the greatest seasons in F1 history was, in its own way, a strong marker of Patrese's ability that late in his career.

From Shadow and Arrows in the late 1970s through Brabham, Alfa Romeo, Williams, and finally Benetton, Patrese's career spanned an unusually wide range of teams and eras, from ground-effect cars in the late 1970s to the turbo era and eventually the electronically sophisticated Williams cars of the early 1990s — a rare firsthand view across several distinct technical periods of the sport.

Competing in the Ronde di Andora rally in Italy as an off-season hobby, Kubica crashed heavily into a barrier that partially penetrated the car, causing catastrophic injuries to his right arm, hand, leg, and foot. Surgeons worked for hours to save the arm from amputation. He required multiple further operations over the following years and was left with permanently reduced function and sensation in his right hand — a career-defining injury that occurred entirely outside his day job as an F1 driver.

Rather than returning directly to F1, Kubica spent several years competing in the World Rally Championship's second-tier categories, effectively relearning high-level competitive driving with a body that no longer worked the way it had before his accident. His performances there — genuinely competitive, not just symbolic — were part of what convinced Williams to sign him for a full F1 return in 2019.

After a difficult single season back in F1 with an uncompetitive Williams car, Kubica moved into sportscar endurance racing, winning races for Ferrari's factory-backed AF Corse team in the World Endurance Championship. It turned out to be a discipline where his adapted driving style and experience translated well, giving his career a genuinely successful third act outside single-seaters.

Grosjean joined IndyCar after his Bahrain accident, returning to racing in the United States with the Dale Coyne and then Andretti teams. He adapted to the oval and road course demands of the series, became genuinely competitive, and integrated into American motorsport culture with a warmth that made him popular with fans and teams. The American chapter of his career has been more settled and, in personal terms, more clearly enjoyable than his Formula 1 years.

At the start of the 1978 Italian Grand Prix at Monza, Peterson was involved in a serious multi-car crash and suffered severe leg injuries. He died the following morning from complications related to the injuries. Mario Andretti clinched the world championship at that same event, meaning his title-winning weekend was overshadowed by grief for his teammate and friend — one of the most bittersweet moments in the sport's history.

Peterson's ten grand prix victories, spread across spells with March, Lotus, and Tyrrell, came in a career where he was rarely in the single fastest car on the grid for a sustained period, meaning many of his wins were earned through sheer racecraft and car control rather than simply having the best machinery.

Barrichello competed in Brazil's Stock Car Pro Series after leaving F1, continuing his professional racing career in domestic Brazilian motorsport. He was popular with Brazilian fans in the series and competitive, winning races in a category very different from Formula 1. The participation demonstrated that his love of racing was intrinsic rather than dependent on the specific category.

Cycling was both fitness tool and genuine pleasure for Vettel. At several European rounds, he arrived at the circuit by bicycle, sometimes cycling 20-30km from his accommodation. He participated in charity cycling events and maintained cycling as a core part of his fitness regime. He has continued cycling extensively since retirement.