The information that the Ferrari fans await for ahead of the 2022 Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal is undoubtedly that linked to the power unit situation of Charles Leclerc: will he be penalized or not?
It will depend on the decisions taken in Maranello after the engine 2 failure that the Monegasque suffered during the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. Immediately after the race, Mattia Binotto hinted that in Canada Leclerc will use a new engine, but without clarifying whether the entire power unit or just some of the components will be new.
In Charles Leclerc’s case, the penalty risk is linked to the turbo. The new and complete power unit number 2 was mounted on Charles’ car during the weekend of the Miami Grand Prix, and in the next stage in Barcelona, the Monegasque retired while he was leading the race, due to a power unit failure which made it clear that at some point he would receive grid penalties.
In the next appointment, the Monaco Grand Prix, power unit number 1 was used, since Monte Carlo is not a demanding circuit in terms of engine power, and the third turbo was thus mounted in Baku on PU number 2.
But things got even worse as the failure of the engine that occurred during the Azerbaijan Grand Prix can thus also have an impact on the weekend in Montreal, since the use of a new complete power unit would mean Charles Leclerc takes to the track with the turbo number 4 and would have to receive (as required by the regulation) a ten place grid penalty positions for the Canadian Grand Prix.
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This is the scenario that appears to be the most probable one ahead of Montreal weekend, but Ferrari has not yet communicated anything on the matter. However, FIA accredited F1 journalist Giuliano Duchessa reported Charles is getting PU3 with a new turbo this weekend and therefore a 10-place grid penalty on Sunday in Canada.
For now, the possibilities that could avoid Charles Leclerc a penalty are linked to the recovery of the turbo number 3, a hypothesis considered unlikely as seen in Baku, or using the turbo 1 on the power unit 3, an operation which in addition to being complex would not allow Ferrari to rotate this first engines, which the rest of the teams now use only during free practice on Friday.
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