Reliability is certainly one of the most obvious characteristics that differentiate contemporary Formula 1 from that of 20 or 30 years ago. In the 80s, 90s and even in the early 2000s it was almost impossible to think of finishing a season without retirements. In seasons of 15-16 Grands Prix, even those who won the world title often had a couple of zero point finishes – at least – due to technical problems. Today, however, even in much longer championships, this variable has almost completely disappeared. Top single-seaters hardly ever have reliability problems. The only real dangers for a driver are accidents. A variable that is playing a very important role this year also in the world championship standings.
However, there is not only Max Verstappen among the drivers who are paying a rather high price to fate in terms of accidents and retirements. The most penalized of all, from this point of view, was the Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc. Reading some of the numbers referring to the first half of the 2021 Formula 1 championship, it turns out that the Monegasque is the driver with the fewest laps completed this season after Valtteri Bottas. The Maranello team’s driver has covered just 547 laps, as compared to 697 for Lewis Hamilton (the only one to have 100% of laps completed) and 696 for Carlos Sainz. The laps covered by Charles Leclerc correspond to just 78.4% of the total. To give a reference, Mazepin with Haas is at 80%.
The comparison with teammate Carlos Sainz also helps to explain the difficulties that Charles Leclerc is experiencing in the overall standings. The two races in which the former McLaren driver finished on the podium, in fact (Monte-Carlo and Hungary), are the two events in which Charles did not finish. Of course, it’s not all about bad luck. Charles Leclerc paid for a mistake in qualifying on the weekend in front of his own fans and was unable to start on Sunday. But it should also be recognized how he had taken the SF21 car to pole on the streets of Monte Carlo. Furthermore, for the missed start in the race there is also a ‘complicity’ of the Maranello team, who did not manage to identify the issue in the damage control phase. In Budapest, however, the winner of Monza 2019 became a simple pin for the ‘bowling ball’ Lance Stroll, who struck at the first corner, eliminating the red #16 car from the Hungarian Grand Prix. Two DNFs that certainly weigh a lot in the overall seasonal balance of the young Ferrari driver.
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