After years of stability, F1 reliability can no longer be taken for granted

First off, apologies for the lack of a Canadian Grand Prix report at the beginning of this week; Ferrari chose last weekend to show us its new electric vehicle, and between that and Memorial Day, one thing led to another, and here we are.

Canada was yet another sprint weekend, meaning limited practice time for teams desperate for it to collect data on their various upgrade packages. The race, held on an artificial island built for Expo 67, is often one of the season’s highlights, and 2026 did not disappoint, with some excellent duals among the field.

The 19-year-old Italian sophomore Kimi Antonelli now leads his Mercedes teammate George Russell by 43 points in the championship after four straight wins in a row. With 25 points for a win, that means Russell could soon be two whole race wins behind his young in-house rival; never a comfortable spot when competing against someone with identical equipment.

Then again, one need only look at last year’s championship to realize it’s far too soon to be declarative; we’re only five races in. Last year, Oscar Piastri led Max Verstappen by more than 100 points at the Dutch Grand Prix—race 15 out of 24 that year—yet finished the year 11 points in arrears.

It’s not that Russell doesn’t have the measure of Antonelli; he’d been in control of the race—just barely—when his battery suffered a catastrophic failure, ending his day on lap 30. As the late, great British F1 commentator Murray Walker was fond of saying, “To finish first, first you have to finish,” which sounds obvious but contains an important point, as the best Murray quotes always do.

Reliability is historically unusual

The fragility of the current cars might strike some as odd, but if anything, it was the hyper-reliable hybrids that raced between 2017 and 2025 that are the real outliers. The last few seasons have been the most reliable in the sport’s history, and by some margin. Even in the 2000s, a driver went into each race knowing there was at least a 40 percent chance their car would fail before the checkered flag.