Ask the legends that and they'll all tell you they're there to be world champion, as many times as possible.
Who dares, wins.
McLaren boss Ron Dennis famously once likened the F1 world to a piranha club.
And it seems his protege - Englishman Lewis Hamilton - will need all his advice in the coming weeks, months and years.
If McLaren suspected they weren't liked by the F1 world after last year's infamous spying scandal, then this year seems to be the turn of Hamilton's.
Hamilton, 23, is often seen as the public relations role model ever since he burst onto the scene in dramatic fashion, almost becoming world champion in his F1 debut season last year.
Clean-cut, good-looking, never short of words, able to slip around F1's 'glam circuit' as well as he does around the tracks.
But the confidence is slowly being seen as arrogance by some of his peers.
If it's not his on-track behaviour, then it's his off-track comments.
But let's look at his latest on-track behaviour first, especially from the weekend's Italian Grand Prix, where he drove from 15th on the grid to second at one stage, before eventually finishing seventh.
He overtook many other cars with often aggressive moves, sometimes, even to the extent that they could be seen as intimidating or dangerous moves. But he wasn't punished by race stewards.
'There were some unnecessary movements he made,' former McLaren team-mate and sworn rival Fernando Alonso told reporters, after Hamilton overtook him down the start-finish straight in excess of 300kmh and then cut across him before the corner, just to shut him out.
Rough driving
Alonso added: 'And he repeated them with (Timo) Glock (pushing him onto the grass) and (Mark) Webber (closing the door aggressively to touch wheels and force him down the escape road). It is his way of racing.'
Glock said: 'I don't know what he was thinking. I was right next to him, but he left me no room.
'Sometimes he drives as though he is completely alone on the track. The next time I am with him on the track, I will behave with him in exactly the same way.'
On the penalty Hamilton suffered at the previous Grand Prix after the overtaking controversy involving Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen, F1 fans mostly sympathised with the Englishman.
But his rival drivers saw it differently.
'Yes, the penalty is quite harsh, but that's the way it is. The rule is quite clear,' said Toyota driver Jarno Trulli, echoing most of his colleagues.
Toro Rosso's Sebastien Bourdais pointed out: 'He did it in Magny-Cours (at the French Grand Prix) and he did it in Spa.
'He has made the same mistake twice. I don't understand why the big mess about it. The penalty is rough, but there you are.'
Trulli added: 'These (run-off escape) corners with space give you more chance to attack as you don't end up on the wall or the gravel.'
Championship rival Felipe Massa wrote on his website: 'Incidents like this have often been discussed in the official driver briefings, when it was made absolutely clear that anyone cutting a chicane has to fully restore the position and also any other eventual advantage gained.
'Maybe if Lewis had waited and tried to pass on the next straight, that would have been a different matter.'
That rule has since been clarified again, that drivers have to wait at least one corner before overtaking again - after handing back any advantage gained by cutting corners previously.
And if it's his off-track comments, they haven't come off any cockier than when he was asked by the media what he thought of that Raikkonen overtaking controversy in the build-up to the Italian GP.
Just read the quote above.
This article was first published in The New Paper, Sept 17, 2008.
