Jolyon Palmer's GP2 Diary - Italy

I've always been a believer of the saying, 'you make your own luck'. Racing drivers are renowned for their long and ever growing list of excuses and just to blame poor races or results on 'bad luck' seems about the most feeble of the lot.

Marcus Ericsson and DAMS have been one of the quickest pairings over the course of the season, however a couple of errors early on - crashing out in Malaysia and then stalling from second on the grid in Bahrain - put them on the back foot. Since then though they have also had some pretty bad luck, losing Feature Race wins in both Barcelona and Silverstone, due to a problem at the pit stop in Barcelona and ultimately contact, and a harsh drive through penalty decision at Silverstone. A recent surge up the standings was also halted in Monza for him as he managed to pick up punctures in both races, including from a safe third (after my wheel came off) in the feature race. I could bemoan my own bad luck this season as well, but no one likes to hear a driver complaining about his or her bad luck, so I'll spare you the details! This season in GP2 could be very different though without the hand that fate has dealt. Arguably Leimer could be 30 or 40 points up the road from anyone in the championship and have one hand on the title and a good chance of an F1 break in 2014, having lost around a 20 point swing in Monaco to most of his championship rivals. Ericsson, despite a few errors early on in the season could still be in the hunt and I'd like to think that with a bit more luck on my side I could have been a lot higher than my current ninth in the standings as well. However, as it has played out, it makes for a very tense showdown in Singapore and Abu Dhabi. Looking back at F1, it seems that Sebastian Vettel always seems to get the lucky breaks at Webber's expense. It hasn't always been the case though. If you look back to Vettel's first title in 2010, he had as much bad luck as anyone in a season, losing at least two victories through reliability problems alone, whilst Webber seemed to have the upper hand, until his error in Korea arguably cost him the championship. Maybe if he had taken those points in Korea that he should have done and thus taken a title, things would have been very different. Fernando Alonso was saying after another dominant Vettel victory in Monza, that it will take some bad luck to stop Vettel winning a fourth consecutive championship this season. Whilst Red Bull will do everything to ensure this doesn't happen, you can never rule it out in motorsport, and with a driver as tenacious as Alonso in pursuit Red Bull and Vettel will not be able to rest on their laurels until the job is done, even though it is hard to look past them in the championship race now. But if you look at last year you could argue it was luck that gave Vettel the title in the final race in Brazil, as after spinning and being hit on the first lap, his car was somehow still drivable and he managed to salvage the critical points he needed when most times you would expect cars to be too heavily damaged after the contact he suffered. Therefore Vettel is now a three-time World Champion and Alonso isn't. Ultimately what this goes to show is that luck can shape the careers of drivers in series such as GP2 or GP3, where we are all desperately needing results to prove ourselves to be worthy of a position at a higher level and giving an excuse of 'bad luck' counts for absolutely nothing. Also in F1 luck can be a big factor over a whole season. What I think is that over time these things even themselves out and suddenly opportunities start to fall for the people that deserve them, at least I hope so anyway! JP Follow Jolyon on Twitter: @JolyonPalmer