2019 Australian F1 Grandprix - Albert Park Melbourne

[The Black Knight]

And Remember, for the first half of the year, Ricciardo had Verstappen's Number and was ahead in the points. The Qualy stat is less meaningful to me than the race performances. And tbh on most race days in 2019 it was sorta evident that RBR had an unbalanced playing field. Verstappen may have better potential but as of right now I think Ricciardo is the better driver, given equal machinery etc. In 2019 that was absolutely not the case for Riccardo and he suffered because of that in the 2nd half of the season (coincidentally, after he announced his move from RBR to renault). Black Knight, you and I are pretty much on the same page in most cases, but I'll disagree with you on this one.

Look at the points up until Hungary before the summer break:
Ricciardo 118 with 2 wins - 4 ret.
Verstappen 105 with 1 win - 3 ret.

After the summer break (and after his august 3rd announcement)
Ricciardo immediately has 2 back to back retirements then another pair of back to backs in USA and Mexico
This resulted in a total of 8 retirements for the 2018 campaign, along with shaite strategies for him in the 2nd half of the year as the team really didn't care about him.

You’re not really getting my point. The point is you can either take reliability into account or you can set it aside. If you’re taking it onboard, all of what you say is valid just as it’s valid to state that reliability decided the 2016 title. Otherwise, you must ignore the DNF’s and just look at the points conveniently ignoring the reasons behind it to reach the conclusions you want.