Car reliability has always played a central role in Formula 1 — an inevitable consequence of teams not wanting to leave any potential performance unexploited. Mechanical DNFs at inopportune times have decided numerous championships. Who can forget Mansell’s puncture at Adelaide 1986 or Hamilton’s shock engine failure at Malaysia 2016? Many of the sport’s most memorable upset results have also come as a result of reliability problems or weather conditions eliminating much of the field.

Today, it is commonly assumed that Formula 1 drivers have little influence in determining the reliability of their cars, with mechanical failures down to the roll of the dice. Sophisticated electronics and monitoring tools carefully protect sensitive components from inappropriate inputs. Drivers are fed constant information on their brake temperatures, fluid pressures, etc., with instructions from the pitwall on how to manage issues as soon as they appear on the telemetry trace. Gone are the…