Reliability after Spain

[Schummy]

Number of mechanically caused retirements and percentages, after GP Spain.

Ferrari 100% 0
Renault 100% 0
Sauber   90% 1
BAR      90% 1
Toyota   90% 1
Jaguar   80% 2
Williams 80% 2
McLaren  60% 4
Minardi  60% 4
Jordan   40% 6
---------------
General  79% 21

I have done some numbers about expected (mechanical) retirements. Sorry if it is too long!

*** Warning! Health authorities warn this content can be damaging/boring for the brain. Use with responsibility ***

Assuming a general reliability of 80%, in ten car-races (5 GPs, two cars per races) just by luck a team can have:

0 rets 11%
1 ret  27%
2 rets 30%
3 rets 20%
4 rets  9%
5 rets  3%
6 rets  1%

In short, all the teams are in the expected range of "luck", except Jordan, who is unlikely to have all those rets just by bad luck.
There are yet too few races to draw significant conclusions about what teams are truly reliable and what are not (without excuses by good/bad luck).

I have done a little calculation about how many rets one driver can have along the season *IF* his car has a 80% reliability. They are showed below:

0  2%*
1  8%****
2 17%*********
3 23%************
4 22%***********
5 15%********
6  8%****
7  3%**
8  1%*

The mean (average) is aprox 3.5, and those data shows one driver will get between 1 and 6 or 7 retirements likely. This means that two drivers/cars A and B with the same level of reliability can can get a very different number of retirements just by luck.

Let's suppose two drivers A, B *with the same car reliability* (80%), how many mechanical rets will get one respect the other? Again I have done approx calculations:

-6   1%*
-5   2%**
-4   4%****
-3   8%********
-2  12%************
-1  15%***************
 0  17%*****************
 1  15%***************
 2  12%************
 3   8%********
 4   4%****
 5   2%**
 6   1%*

Note just 47% of times two WDC contenders drivers will get at most 1 ret difference, and 53% of times they will get two or more rets difference between them just by chance.

If, as we have sid in other thread, a title contender usually does and average of 6 point per race (with the new point system), then it means 53% of times one driver will gain/lose 12 or more points just by luck with rets.

Even "worse", there is approx a 14% (1 out of 7) chance of one driver getting *four or more* retirements just by luck, and it means 24 or more points by luck.

Resume :
(1) A final difference of 12 or less points in WDC is almost irrelevant because it could have been overcome by luck along the season. Except, naturally, when the driver ahead was precisely who had bad luck and even then he made more points!
(1b) The new point system put more accent in reliability, increasing the "chance" element in final points.
(2) Just by now, McLaren low reliability *could* be explained by they having very bad luck. But if its streak continues it will not be able to be attibuted to luck anymore.
(3) Ferrari/Renault excellent reliability *could* be explained by good luck. Even if they go on with 100% reliability in Monaco it will not significant yet. However if they do 7 or 8 races with perfect reliability it cannot be easily explained by luck but by real and "proven" better reliability.

[Knowlesy]

Jordan are shocking, truly awful.

Renault are impressive to have 100% reliability considering.....

[climb]

These numbers are well above my possibilities of comprehension; Schummy, hats off!

[RWC]

Nice interesting stats

I allways did wonder why PS made a song and dance about 'selecting' the more reliable version of the cosworth for minardi.I guess the truth was it was all he could afford so he dressed the news up abit,lol
....cause they were NEVER going to get any points from waiting 'till others broke down.Didn't he learn anything from last year?

[Adam43]

So what you are saying is whereas in the past the best chance of points for a backmarker team was to play the reliability card and wait for the others to break down now the best chance is to go for it and hope you make it to the finish!

Whatever reliability is staggering nowadays.

Good job Schummy.

[Bononi]

Good job indeed !

You should work for some of those teams, specially the last ones !

[BootsOntheSide]

The teams have achieved amazing reliability considering the changes that've been brought in over the last 2 years. It seesm like the teams with the most moneyinvested are getting the best reliability, with Jordan and Jaguar struggling and Toyota doing so well. The only real exception is McLaren, especially once you add their 2 qualifying failures.

[Snrub]

I cannot understand why Jordan and Minardi have such horrible engine reliablity records. For both 2003 and 2004 Jaguar haven't had this problem. If Jordan and Minardi have slower varients of the same engine, wouldn't one expect them to be atleast as reliable if not more reliable than Jaguar's engines?

[Schummy]

climb: thanks! However I hope those numbers have been useful to show something about teams/cars. My goal is to put here something that can be useful, not "awful/awesome"!

Minardi is certainly in the wrong end of the reliability list, so the "chant" about its engine being at least reliable is surely due a PS's need to dress it, as RWC said.

The most appalling team in my view, though, is Jordan. I acknowledge that I hate to see the current state of Eddie's team. I have a bit of soft spot for him and his team among this hard world of F1's teams.

[1 Lotus]

Great numbers, but for me the story is in the first table.

[RWC]

Originally posted by Snrub
I cannot understand why Jordan and Minardi have such horrible engine reliablity records. For both 2003 and 2004 Jaguar haven't had this problem. If Jordan and Minardi have slower varients of the same engine, wouldn't one expect them to be atleast as reliable if not more reliable than Jaguar's engines?

I think a whole lot of this is explainable by the fact thet their respective engines aren't the latest models MADE to last -but are older more fragile ones that are then detuned to last longer.Sure,if they detune them enough they'll be fine but how much effort,money and research are they putting into getting it just right? Not alot obviously,they are pushing them a little too hard

[300kph]

Good work Schum....as always.

...and my team is languishimg near the bottom..

The Toyota though, is looking good.

[Snrub]

Isn't Jordan suppose to be paying something like $20M for the Cosworth engines? I suppose they don't have much choice, but IMO they're getting the shaft from Ford. Surely it's worthwhile for a top team to sell Jordan some engines that are essentially the same, but with a a less agressive cam and redline or something. With all of the manufacturers competing I can see the value it in. Eg. If Honda decided to give Jordan a half way decent engine they could humiliate Honda's arch rivals at Toyota with a second class engine.

Jordan have done a truely commendable job this year with their car. They've had massive money problems which surely retarded R&D and their ability to setup the car. They've got a horrible engine and yet they're able to run with teams who have 8X their budget. Eddie Jordan sounds silly when he talks about Jordan's ability to compete, but given the stiff competition it's not so silly.

[Dutton]

that reliability has turned out ot be high is not surprising to me, for this is what hte teams would have been focusing harder on than in the past I would imagine.

However, that it turned out to be so right from the off. That did surprise me.