You won’t be that surprised to know that I disagree. There are no constants and outlying scenarios do not alter the principle that the best drivers get the best cars.
A driver can get lucky and find themselves in the car that beats the field that year but that good fortune won’t be sustained and wasn’t for Button. I don’t agree that Button became a great driver because of the car. He was a good driver who found himself in the right car and took advantage. Rubens gave him a run for his money too.
Alonso is/was his own worst enemy. He is like the bit of grit in a pearl. He is aggravating and difficult to deal with, some teams may be able to deal with that and some cannot. His reputation of being difficult has held him back. Potentially he could have tried to stay at McLaren and the car would have come to him. F1 teams above all else want to win if anyone could have with Alonso and his behavior they would have hired him. His situation is not to do with misfortune but of his own making and a waste of his talent. A great driver (one of the very best on the grid) but a poor team player.
The thing is almost all of the field are good drivers that’s why they are there. They all have a rare talent. Some of them are potentially at least great drivers and a very few are exceptional drivers like Hamilton, Max and Alonso with multiple championships.
Even the exceptional drivers at some point run out of talent. This happened to Michael Schumacher in the end and we may be seeing that happen to Hamilton but it does not negate their career.
I agree with you about Alonso being a poor team player during his first stint in F1. I think on his return, after spending some years in WEC and other disciplines, he discovered the advantages of being a team player. He is still critical and demanding of his team, as Honda discovered, but now this is directed towards the team getting better rather than just for his personal advantage. His talent is up there with Max, Lewis and Seb, all of whom managed to be in the right car at the right time and so win multiple championships at their peak. Max is still in his peak, but whether F1 will hold his interest in the medium to long term is currently unknown. Maybe he will do what Alonso did and go and win other championships.
With a Newey chassis & Honda engine it is possible that AM could end up with the pace setting car next season.
If this turns out to be the case it will be interesting to see if the brief flashes of flare Alonso showed last season can be sustained for entire races or whether age has indeed diminished his abilities.
They had contracts elsewhere and wished to stay. Although Hamilton is one of the greats, I doubt even the most loyal or ardent fan could argue he was the best driver last year. The Red Bull, at least for the 2nd half, was largely an equal car in the end. Managing Max is likely to be like holding a tiger by the tail in a racing context, but makes him have some of the issues Alonso has with that kind of reputation. Max is at the height of his powers, though so many would hope they could contain him and sign him up. Max at Redbull gets what he wants; all other teammates come as a distant No.2 in terms of the teams support.
In any case, I do not agree that either Piastri or Lando was not the best driver. Also, as I pointed out, this is not an absolute but a principle that holds true the large majority of the time, but occasionally other circumstances can be at play. Not much is certain in any sport.