It is no surprise that Ferrari have a 100 percent reliability record this year. The one-engine rule, however, has seen most of the field raising the bar and getting close to the Italian squad. Atlas F1's Karl Ludvigsen reviews the teams' reliability so far this season

There's only one unresolved mystery about this year's Grand Prix in Monaco. It's this: if Michael Schumacher hadn't shunted his Ferrari in the tunnel, would it have broken down before the checkered flag? I think you know the answer as well as I do: it wouldn't have. The Ferrari reliability record this season has been awesome and without equal. Did someone say that the race at Silverstone was Schumi's 50th in succession without a mechanical failure? I haven't checked, but I can believe it.

Last year I counted Rubens's running out of gas in Brazil as a mechanical failure, so thus far in 2004 Ferrari have improved on their year-ago performance. In fact the whole field has pulled up its socks in this respect. The field's average for mechanical reliability — counting disqualifications for technical reasons — is 79 percent through the British Grand Prix. That's up from last year's 70 percent.

This season, astonishingly, everybody has done better than last year's average! The ones who were worse than average in 2003 were BAR-Honda, Minardi, Jaguar, Sauber and, worst of all, Jordan-Ford. This year no-one has a finishing percentage worse than 71, showing a major exercise in upward pulling of socks.

Although I haven't analyzed the year-to-year results in detail, I have to believe that this is owed to the one-engine-per-weekend rule, which is encouraging greater conservatism among those setting rev limits for the race. As well, I think teams have brushed up their methods for using telemetry to detect incipient engine problems and to adjust operating parameters accordingly.

Looking at the mechanical reliability record so far in 2004, we have to credit Ferrari with a 100-percent achievement. As we know, Rubens Barrichello is the only driver to have finished every race, and I'm crediting Michael with a 100-percent mechanical record as well. Just how do they do it? I took special note of the following comments by Ross Brawn:

"The key is consistency. What impressed me when I first arrived at Ferrari in 1997 was the quality control department. I think we have benefited from having the long road-car tradition. We have three or four people who don't let any problem escalate. The slightest problem is destroyed as soon as it is detected. Our reliability stems from attitude with a very good system."

We can trace the origins of this back to Luca di Montezemolo's arrival at Ferrari for his second tour of duty in 1991. Luca had driven Ferrari's latest V8 sports car, the 348, and thought it was awful. Ferrari's quality deficit, especially from suppliers, hurt manufacturing efficiency as well as the final product: the rectification area at Maranello was almost as big as the factory itself.

Luca's first order of business on arriving was to raise Ferrari's quality game, and in this he was successful, making the cars of the prancing horse usable every day — not previously a feature of the marque. Had Ross Brawn arrived earlier, he wouldn't have been so impressed by Ferrari's approach to quality.

So who is second-best in reliability so far this year? None other than one of last season's laggards, Sauber-Petronas. With only two mechanical failures so far, Sauber's 92-percent finishing record against 56 percent around this point last year ranks it as Most Improved. We can safely assume that some of the credit for this is owed to its use of Ferrari engines and transaxles, even if it only means that this gives the Swiss team more time to focus its attention on the rest of the car. In any case, if there's anything that the meticulous Swiss should be good at, it's reliability.

Next best so far this year has been Renault, whose reliability record is 88 percent if we assume that, as suspected, Jarno Trulli's spectacular smash at Silverstone was owed to a chassis breakage. This is good going for Renault, and underpins the team's grip on second place in the standings. Nevertheless it's not quite so good as their 94 percent part-way through 2003, so the Anglo-French outfit still have work to do.

From their 94-percent form in 2003, BMW-Williams have fallen to an 83-percent record this year where mechanical failures are concerned. That's four defects in 22 starts, including two disqualifications for components not to specification — a clear mechanical fault that had escaped numerous checks.

Tied with a 79-percent record are BAR-Honda and Jaguar-Cosworth. Next in the ranking are Toyota with 75 percent, six failures having marred their season so far. This is a record that will deeply concern the meticulous Japanese, not known for their tolerance of mechanical defects.

The three tail-end Charlies shared the same record: seven defects apiece for a 71-percent record. We aren't surprised to find Minardi-Cosworth among them, although they've improved from 56 percent at mid-season last year. Much more improved are Jordan-Ford, which in 2003 were struggling at 44 percent.

The surprising third member of this group is McLaren-Mercedes, who a year ago were zipping along with an 88-percent record. Lack of reliability as well as speed has been at the heart of the collapse of the McLaren challenge in the first half of the current season. Luckily for them, and for the sport, it looks like that's changing.

About the author:
Long time columnist at Atlas F1, Karl Ludvigsen is an award-winning author and historian who managed racing programs for Fiat in America in the late 1970s and Ford of Europe in the early 1980s. He is the author of seven books about racing drivers and numerous books about classic racing cars and engines, all of which draw extensively on the many images in his Ludvigsen Library in Suffolk, England.

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