Lance Stroll and the Record Nobody Wants: 13 Retirements and Counting

Lance Stroll is about to write his name in the Formula 1 history books, although he would surely prefer it to be for another reason. The Canadian Aston Martin driver accumulates 13 retirements in the 20 races disputed of the 2026 season and with three Grands Prix still ahead, he threatens to equal one of the most negative records in the category: Andrea de Cesaris's 16 retirements in 1987.

The last disappointment came in Brazil where Stroll could barely complete 30 laps before a new battery problem forced him to park his AMR26. Another Sunday to forget, another retirement to add to the collection and an increasingly worrying statistic. Although on this occasion, it would be unfair to point to the Canadian as the main culprit, Honda and Aston Martin are doing a good part of the work for Stroll to end up signing one of the seasons with the most retirements in history. The reliability problems of the car and the Japanese power unit have been a constant throughout the year to the point that the Canadian has had more opportunities to explain a breakdown than to celebrate a good result.

Of his 13 retirements, only two have been due to a crash (in Monaco and Madrid), the other 11 are related to technical or operational problems of the AMR26 although not all can be directly attributed to Honda. In Brazil, without going any further, the Japanese manufacturer once again encountered a battery problem in Stroll's car, after having suffered another during Saturday's day and the most worrying thing is that it still does not have the cause fully identified: "We know what happened, but we don't know what the root cause is" acknowledged Shintaro Orihara, Honda's engineering manager on track, after the Interlagos race.

The disaster is not limited to Sundays: Aston Martin has also suffered numerous setbacks during the free practice sessions and qualifying, with problems that have conditioned the weekends of its two drivers practically since the start of the championship, all this after a season in which engine vibrations came to repeatedly damage the AMR26's batteries enormously complicating the team's life.

While Fernando Alonso has managed to rescue the team's only seven points, Stroll continues with his tally at zero, his best result of the year is a twelfth position, achieved precisely at the Bahrain Grand Prix exceptionally held in Malaysia, as if that were not enough, the Canadian has also reached this season the 100 eliminations in Q1 throughout his career in Formula 1, another unenviable statistic.

With three Grands Prix still to be disputed, Stroll has a last opportunity to avoid going down in history for the worst reason possible, although seeing how the season has transpired, perhaps the truly surprising thing would be for his Aston Martin to manage to finish the three remaining races without breaking down again.

De Cesaris's record is within reach and the Canadian needs a reliability miracle to avoid it.