Verstappen holds unwanted record after Bahrain

The 2022 season could not have started worse for Max Verstappen. The reigning world champion, with his retirement in the closing stages of the race, is on zero points and 26 points behind leader in the championship Charles Leclerc. And then the Dutchman also picked up an unwanted record.

Highest failure rate for Verstappen

Verstappen crashed out in Bahrain for the 30th time in his Formula One career. With 142 Grands Prix to his name that comes to a failure rate of 21.13 percent. This gives the Dutchman the highest failure rate of any driver on the current grid. Including Aston Martin invader Nico Hulkenberg. Incidentally, the German is not far behind the Red Bull Racing driver with a 21.11 percent rate.

Besides Verstappen and Hulkenberg, Fernando Alonso and Nicholas Latifi also have a failure rate above twenty percent. Alonso stands at 20.6 percent with 69 dropouts. Latifi only dropped out eight times in his career, but his still early F1 career does put him at a dropout rate of exactly 20 percent.

Hamilton, Bottas and Albon most reliable drivers

Only three drivers have a failure rate below ten percent. Guanyu Zhou we do not count here. The Chinese drove only one Grand Prix and finished in a very nice tenth place. Lewis Hamilton (failure rate of 9.34%) and Valtteri Bottas (failure rate of 9.50%) did very well in terms of reliability, especially thanks to their years with the dominant Mercedes, but Alexander Albon appears to be the most reliable driver on the grid. With only three dropouts in 39 Grands Prix, that comes to a percentage of only 7.69%.