I only play championship mode, with the real drivers, and it seems nothing has changed there. In 15 full distance races, ive had 1 or 2 mechanical dnfs every race, and nothing more. Makes races really dull, like every year theres not really any unpredictability sadly.
Sure not all races have lots of retirements in real life, but they often have more than just 1 or 2. And races like the one in Austria DO happen after all. Its especially weird in game when doing a wet/dry monaco race for example and nothing happens for near 2 hours of racing and theres 1 dnf only.
I wonder if AI are programmed to make mistakes in career only? Since in Championship mode they are all on rails always, and seem incapable of even passing each other. I did a full distance race at Singapore and Stroll finished second, as he did a 2 stop race, and all others did a 3 stop race and no one was able to pass him. There was a 10 car train for the last 25 laps of the race.
For problems like this, ive always thought the simple solution is to have options. Some people want more retirements, some people want less.. why not have an option in game? AI retirements - small amount, medium amount, large amount, random..... something like that.