#race-starts--reliability

#race-starts--reliability

Reliability is broadly defined by how often your car experiences unscheduled failures or malfunctions. A car that is more likely to experience failures is considered unreliable, whereas one that can go for 150,000 miles with nothing but regular maintenance would be considered reliable.

I think when we decided to give him the race seat one and a half years ago, we hoped for this trajectory. The ups and downs you expect from a young driver aged 18 in the first year, and eventually by the second year [we hoped] the success would materialize and I think this is happening.

We've been involved with the business for five years now. It's an incredible brand with lots of legacy and great values, and there's a long-term plan here. That was supported by two things last year: Carlos joining us, who obviously saw the opportunity when it came to wanting to win; and finishing fifth. And that just supported our story of going back to the top.

We're using Formula 1 on Apple TV to show exactly how the extreme research and development tested in the world's harshest racing environments translates directly to the consumer. That's not a marketing line. It's absolutely real, drawing a line between Ford racing vehicles and the tech inside vehicles like the F-150 Raptor, Bronco Raptor and the new EV electric truck that's on its way.

When I was younger I was frustrated, I was getting angry, especially when I was at Williams and finishing second to last every weekend. I was pissed off. I worked my whole life to get to F1 and now I'm at the back, and doing nothing. So I had to work on that, how do I deal with that and I came to the realisation that I just need to focus on my job.

In the short term, expectations are brutally realistic, but this is still a team intent on making noise from day one. That intent will be made clear when Cadillac unveils the livery of its first F1 car during a Super Bowl commercial Sunday. Such a move is a statement and arrival aimed as much at mainstream America as at a paddock that, for years, questioned whether the brand belonged on the grid at all.

I sat down with [his manager] while we were talking at the beginning of '25 and we said that the best-case scenario was having a spot at Andretti, because I felt like it's going to become the best team. They've got all the ingredients there. So it's funny that it worked out the way it has.

In a more-natural habitat - the serpentine road course of Sonoma Raceway - this 1,250-horsepower hybrid advances its case as the fastest production car in American history, and among the speediest to ever roam this planet's surface.

The vibration into the chassis is causing a few reliability problems: mirrors falling off, tail lights falling off, all that sort of thing, which we are having to address. Fernando [Alonso] is of the feeling that he can't do more than 25 laps consecutively before he risks permanent nerve damage to his hands.

The best part of every season's start is looking around the sunny Daytona starting grid and seeing every uniform, every pit box and every car sparkling. As Rusty Wallace once said, "Daytona 500 prerace is the happiest place on the planet, and the cleanest. And that lasts about one lap." Because then begins all of those rubs and pit stops and rain delays and fuses lit and fistfights that spend the next nine months dishing out stains of sweat and oil, with a little blood and champagne mixed in for good measure.