About the only thing I find a little weird is that I expected reliability to be more of a general issue for teams early on this season, a bit like the extreme example of Max until recently, yet Ferrari appear to have more issues recently with both cars.
Another example of a classic race being a yawn-fest in a wide 2017 spec F1 car. The sooner the cars have to be made ultra-narrow, the better (along with other rule changes like more mechanical grip than aero grip).
Earlier on in the season, I can't recall where exactly, Spain maybe, they put a new engine in Vettel's car but then had a turbo issue, so their first move was to put the 3rd turbo into the car rather than run the 2nd turbo. At the end of the season those decisions catch up, it means even if something looks a little wrong, there isn't a spare non penalty getting engine part to throw into the car any more. They can't just go, that looks a little off, just to be safe I'll put the next part in and avoid all issues, instead they can't be conservative.
Thing is all season we thought the consequences of that turbo problem early in the year and getting to the 3rd turbo so early would mean an engine penalty at the end of the season then people are acting like Vettel has been screwed due to engine penalty at Malaysia... but he was like 95% certain to have to start from the back in one of the final 6 races which means nothing really changed when he had to. Today however was bad luck and basically what happened to Hamilton in Australia 2014, one cylinder being gone compromising power so much. outside of literally 1/6th of the power being gone, the timing and smoothness of the engine is just gone so it will behave like way more than 1/6th down on power.
It's a shame but it could have happened in the third race, or the first race, and be chasing the whole way as with Hamilton in 2014.
but as a team...
2010 4th
2011 4th
2012 5th
2013 2nd
oh look one season they were sort of relevant
For someone who pretends to know a lot about F1... you know nothing about F1.
Add in 2009 and 2008
2008 rubbish, but also putting 200-300mil worth of team talent into developing the 2009 car throughout the whole season. 2009 won the title but also had a team budget of about 80mil, lost most of the staff and didn't do any work on a 2009 car.
2010 they were bought by Mercedes... who under Brawn announced a plan to BUILD THE TEAM SLOWLY over time, with their intention from the start always to be at around full strength for towards the end of 2012, have a good team for 2013 and be completely ready for 2014 and the new regulations.
2010 4th ~120mil budget
2011 4th ~ 150mil budget
2012 5th ~ 200mil budget
2013 2nd ~250mil budget.
You're ruining your own argument. A, Mercedes were competitive as soon as the team budget approached those of the teams ahead of them and despite only being at Ferrari/Mclaren/RBR budget during 2013, were 2nd in the championship.
That they were as competitive as they were from 2010 to 2012 with the lacking budget is a testament to what Brawn could achieve and that they immediately moved up to 2nd place the second their budget was on par with the big 3, suggests how competitive they were.... before the v6's.
and slowed down progress by years. 
