Reliability after Imola

[Schummy]

After the Imola these are percentage of times cars didn't have mechanical retirements are as follows:

Ferrari 100%
Toyota  100%
Renault 100%
Jaguar   88%
Sauber   88%
Williams 88%
BAR      88%
McLaren  50%
Minardi  50%
Jordan   50%
------------
General  80%

General reliability continues being 80%.

BAR has lost one car (although Sato got classified he broke before finish line).

McLaren has inproved its lame statistic. Jordan lost its two cars and now is at the (shared) bottom.

Just three teams keep perfect reliability, but Toyota needs to find some speed!

[x_dt]

Confirmation if any were needed that cars are more reliable than they used to be. 80% reliability is approx equivalent to having 21 finishers when there were 26 starters.

Have there ever been 21 classified finishers in an F1 GP?

[climb]

BTW it's a typical consequence of the points system inaugurated last year: now it's extremely negative to DNF, so any team is way more focussed on reliability.

[BootsOntheSide]

As far as I know, the highest was 19 at Hcokenheim 1988 - which was especially impressive as it included Piquet crashing out in damp conditions on lap one.

[hoffy]

So the days of circulating at the back of the pack, waiting for other cars to be parked and picking up points is long gone.

Geez, remember the turbo days when it was regular for less then 10 cars to finish!!

Does anyone have any stats on the least amount of finishers in a race?

[Schummy]

It is really impressive since the old fast Hock seemed to be a engine-breaking circuit.

Ah! But if it was a wet race, Hock would be much more forgiving.

[Red]

At Monaco 1996 only Panis, Coulthard and Herbert were still motoring. 7 cars were classified in that race though. But I'm not at all sure that this is the record... (though it's darn hard to beat that)

[jetsetter]

80% reliability is a testament to the preparation put in by the teams & it just goes to show how hard it is to get points now let alone get on the podium.

[Shoe-maker]

Reliability is very high. You have to credit the teams for working hard to that effect. Maybe I'm being cynical but perhaps "Mad Max" was hoping for more breakdowns in the heavy brigade to mix results up a bit.

[zetta]

Williams reliabilty should be put at 75%, not 88. Montoya managed to finish the Bahrain race, but his car certainly was not working at the end.

[Schummy]

Thanks, zetta, for the input, but...

After Bahrain I put Williams reliability with the two numbers (with and without JPM car's illness). But for the sake of consistence, I have decided to account as mechanical retirement only those that don't reach the finish line (for example, Sato in Imola).

It is very difficult what cars and at what extent cars develop different levels of mechanical troubles. Also, if just focus in the top teams, we will get more reports (or see in TV) about "troubles" in top teams that in lesser ones.

In short, by now I'll abide to this "rule": no matter if it gets or not a classification, if car is not able to cross the finish line AND if its retirement is for mechanical problem, it will be accounted as "mechanical retirement".

If someone sees some error in the calculation, please tell in the thread to amend the data, just as zetta did (although in this case it was deliberately done by me). I'm sure along the season we will get fuzzy borderline cases that will be difficult to point out.

Again, thanks for everyone who tries to improve this statistic. It is just here to put another thing to comment about F1.