Ferrari went through a horror weekend at the Azerbaijan GP as both Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc suffered DNFs in Baku.
After a very strong start start to the 2022 campaign, Ferrari find themselves firmly in the bac foot. They built a comprehensive lead over Red Bull in the opening stages, but are now 80 points behind them in the Constructors’ Standings.
Sunday’s Azerbaijan GP turned out to be their worst outing of the season so far. On lap 9, Sainz had to retire due to a hydraulic issue. Just 12 laps later, Leclerc brought in his car to the pits with smoke blowing out of the engine. This has led to massive concerns in the Scuderia regarding the Monegasque’s power-unit’s reliability.
He already suffered a power-unit related retirement at the Spanish GP earlier this year. If he has to change his turbo charger yet again, Leclerc will be forced to take a grid penalty at next week’s Canadian GP.
After Sunday’s horror outing, Binotto admitted that looking for extra speed in the PU cost them reliability. However, it’s not something he regrets, as he would rather have a faster car that’s unreliable than the other way round.
Ferrari fans react to Mattia Binotto’s comments on Leclerc’s power unit
Binotto did not have answers regarding what caused Leclerc to retire the F1-75. However, he urges calm and assures fans that they will solve whatever issue there is, to fight at the front once again.
“Each single event is different,” he said. “We need to analyze what happened here. I don’t think we have all the answers right now. We’ll be back, try to analyze, fix the problems and become stronger for the future.”
Later, the 52-year old admitted that he prefers speed over reliability. This is mainly due to the fact that fixing a fast car to be more reliable is easier. “I cannot blame the team,” he said. “They have put in so much effort to find performance. I would rather have good performance and try to fix reliability rather than vice versa.”
Ferrari fans did not seem very convinced with what the Italian team boss had to say. The Ferrari car is faster, but if it can’t finish races, it’s performance becomes redundant. However, it was something which Christian Horner too stated at the start of the season when Red Bull was struggling with reliability issues.
