Hi Tony
There are some differences between GP3Edit ( that I used for a long time ) and Team Editor ( Performances sector ). In last times, I used Laurent's editor, 'cos it was resembling more precise in driver results...therefore, I can argue that also on failures it should be better.
Regarding failures, as You probably know, they are scheduled, as numbers in magic files, where You can see each kind of failures. In my opinion, some failures should be changed, or should be updated, and anyway, a lot of other mechanical failures should be inserted..but, actually this is not possible, since in magic data these are the 8 possible failures:
desc126=failure chance : suspension
desc127=failure chance : loosewheel
desc128=failure chance : puncture
desc129=failure chance : engine
desc130=failure chance : transmission
desc131=failure chance : oilleak/waterleak
desc132=failure chance : throttle/brake
desc133=failure chance : electrics
Remember that the unitary value ( 1 car, I think ) is 744 for each failure in magic file. Therefore, 2 cars having the same failures are reported as 1488+1=1489 ( I don't know why...), and so on.
In my opinion, failures are intended for all the Grand Prix days...so, basically You could have a puncture, or any other failure also in Qualify, although I don't remember often this evenience.
The distribution of failures, of course, is not personalized for the team...it's completelly casual, and it dependes from the failure team percentage: for example, between a team with 6000 as failure value and another one with 2000, the first is more probably affected by a failures...and between the same team drivers, commonly, the less skilled ( less perf value in perf text ) is more affected. But I have to say that there are still a lot of unknow factors in GP4 that are conditioning failures, performances, etc...some events are completely randomized, and You can have an example from the fact that although You can put 0 as range ability in race and qualify for all drivers, You will obtain alway different results ( sometimes similare, but anyway not always the same ).
From this discussion, You can also understand that for a realistic, specific race result in GP4 You need some editors ( like Pit & lap, and Failures Editors by Alessandro Carrera ) that, from saved games ( only saved started games...) are able to manage failures, pits, and results.
I think that this could be interesting sometimes, but probably are more funny generic performances, with variable results.
Finally, from this discussion You can also see that realistic performances are not possible in a complete way in GP4, and overall, they are not feasible without magic files editing.
A new physic file alone, also with a new perf text, can't give a complete performances set for GP4.