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F1 is a team sport, and more often than not, this crucial detail gets lost. For a driver to win the title, every cog in the team's machine has to work towards making that happen. Be it the engineers, the senior management, the mechanics, the technicians, or even the drivers. Everyone has to be aligned with one goal and that is winning the title.
One of the vital cogs that often get overlooked in all of this is the second driver within a team. Many teams go ahead with the ideology of having two best drivers in the team and then the two would battle it out for supremacy over a season.
There are other teams, however, that build a squad around one elite driver and then hire a second driver to play the supporting role. In these teams, the job of the second driver is to be the wingman for the senior driver.
Over the years, there have been quite a few drivers that have acted as wingmen. Who are they? Let's take a look.
Top 5 'No. 2 drivers' in F1
#5 Gerhard Berger
Gerhard Berger's time as a wingman came alongside the legendary Ayrton Senna. Berger had built a strong reputation over his career and was regarded highly in the F1 paddock at the time.
But he would be teamed up with Senna, who was just a force of nature at the time. He was coming off a tumultuous partnership with Alain Prost and Berger knew from the beginning what his role was going to be.
The Austrian was free to challenge Senna, but when it came to the battle for the big prize, the former was too far behind.
#4 Sergio Perez
Sergio Perez is arguably the only wingman on the current F1 grid. He has played the role of being a deputy to Max Verstappen ever since he joined the team in 2021.
Perez's major contribution was in the race in Turkey and Abu Dhabi that season when he valiantly defended against Lewis Hamilton, which cost him a lot of time in both races.
The Mexican driver has since been a part of Red Bull and finished P2 in the championship in the 2023 F1 season.
#3 Rubens Barrichello
Arguably the longest partnership as a wingman was what Rubens Barrichello had with Michael Schumacher at Ferrari. The two drivers got together in 2000, which was the first year Schumacher won the title with the Italian team.
Throughout the five-year championship reign for Ferrari, Barrichello and Schumacher were together and both did the job as well as they could.
There were moments where Barrichello had to give up his position for Schumacher and sometimes it did cause controversy, but that was just part of the job that the Brazilian was hired to do.
#2 Valtteri Bottas
Valtteri Bottas joined Mercedes in 2017 as the young Finn wanting to emulate what his predecessor Nico Rosberg had done, which was beat Lewis Hamilton and win the title.
Unfortunately for Bottas, he joined the team at a time when there was an outside threat from Sebastian Vettel in his Ferrari.
As a result, the driver was more or less relegated to the second driver role. He was given a free rein early in the season to challenge Hamilton, but as the season progressed, Bottas would fall back one step at a time and just be unable to keep up.
Bottas even gave up a win in the 2018 F1 Russian GP for teammate Hamilton and by 2021, he was more or less worn down as a teammate to such a pristine talent.
#1 Eddie Irvine
A driver who is often referred to as the best and most pragmatic wingman ever in F1, Eddie Irvine knew from day one what his role at Ferrari was going to be. He was going to play supporting cast to Michael Schumacher in every way possible and that meant being second in line for any new parts or even in the races.
Irvine was at his pragmatic best as he understood what he had to do and negotiated the best possible contract for himself.
After a strong stint with Ferrari, he almost won the title in 1999 as Schumacher missed the season due to injury and in 2000 negotiated a lucrative contract and left the team.
