Snaps shots only require pointing and shooting but many people want to realize a vision, a message or mood and to do that well and consistently it does require far more understanding of the physics, perception, optics, and how everything can be used to trick the camera and viewer to understand the intent as intended. The most consistent gallery wall shooters usually do have a great deal of knowledge of how things work so he can take it far beyond what the camera designer and programmer intended.
Same in any field that combines technical elements and artistic expression. I know in my field of recording music for decades, the equipment was available to anyone who had a trust fund but the few who excelled and consistently had a great deal more balance of in-depth knowledge that could use the same equipment and produce what no else did. Even though there are a thousand studios, at any given time, about 80% of hit records that lasted in contribution were recorded by about 8 studios, at different times it was a different set of 8 but hanging out in any for more than a few hours you could see which they might be, the attention to detail and the inventiveness in solving creative problems with novel solutions that fit the need but might never be needed again. From 1979 to 86, my own studio produced more top 10 albums/songs than any other studio in the world, yet did not have the latest and greatest equipment. No billboard weekly chart in that era was missing one of our songs and up to 6 of the top 10 with different artists on some weeks. The reason at that time and why others had similar success was knowing a lot above and beyond the button pressing. The electronics, acoustics, human perception, music theory, psychology, all played a part more significant than the hardware. Someone who knows the physics of light and lenses has a much richer pallet of options to solve creative questions.
And same with driving as in your example. Anyone can drive well enough to get to the grocery store but when precision and reliability is needed for high performance you can bet that every F1 driver has a superior education in engineering and dynamic systems. I have never met one who was not very aware of the physics involved.
