There are so many different racing disciplines in the vast and diverse world of motorsport, each of which has dominant and successful champions but also such a diversity of machinery, required skills, and political machinations.
It is, therefore, really difficult to compare the skills of a diverse range of drivers across different eras, except when it comes to the chase for one of the most elusive achievements in the history of any sport, let alone motor racing.
The Triple Crown of Motorsport is not an official accolade, unlike an individual world championship or some individual achievements such as those metered out by NASCAR.
Instead, it is the unofficial award for any driver who can win throughout their career the Monaco Grand Prix, the Indianapolis 500 and the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
These are the three most prestigious races in Formula One, IndyCar and endurance racing, respectively, and are typically seen as the three most prestigious races in the world. Some versions replace the Monaco Grand Prix with the Formula One World Championship as a whole.
However, in either case, the only driver in history to complete the Triple Crown was Graham Hill. He won the Monaco Grand Prix five times in 1963, 1964, 1965, 1968 and 1969, the Indianapolis 500 in 1966 and the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1972.
This was a feat seen as effectively impossible, as whilst eight drivers had completed two of the three before Graham Hill’s Le Mans win, it was seen as the ultimate test of every aspect of a driver’s skill set, including the complex corners of Monaco, the sheer speed of Indianapolis and the raw resilience of Le Mans.
Two drivers did come close, with Mario Andretti winning the WSC category in 1995 but not the overall race, which is not seen to count. A similar story is found with Juan Pablo Montoya, who won the LMP2 Pro-Am category in 2021.
With how different the three categories have become in the decades since Mr Hill’s victory, there is a chance that his astonishing feat will never be matched, despite Fernando Alonso’s best efforts.