Scuderia Ferrari Team Principal Mattia Binotto admitted that he is “not worried” about the possibility of Charles Leclerc suffering another power unit failure in the next round of the 2022 Formula 1 season, which takes place this weekend in Montreal.
The Mongegasque driver had to retire in the two of the last three races due to engine problems and immediately after the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, the Ferrari boss confirmed that reliability “is certainly a concern” from a longer-term perspective as the Maranello team is looking for its first drivers’ world title since way back in 2007, when Kimi Raikkonen won for Ferrari.
Regarding the Montreal event, where teams were busily setting up at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve on Tuesday, the Ferrari boss confirmed it’s less of a worry, despite the fact that the Italian side will not have time to make any changes to improve reliability, but will use a new engine which should allow the Monegasque driver to finish the race without any problems:
“I don’t have an answer yet,” Mattia Binotto explained when asked by the media what went wrong with Charles Leclerc’s power unit at the Baku City Circuit – “On Tuesday the power unit will be analysed in the factory and we will understand better. But for Montreal I am not worried because we will have a new engine, and at low mileage these problems should not occur,” he said, as reported by Italian daily newspaper Corriere della Sera – “As for the rest of the year, we have to find a solution as quickly as possible.”
Also worried are Ferrari’s customers Alfa Romeo and Haas, who have also been hit by power unit issues at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix and in the previous races: “Would you believe me if I said I am not at all worried?” Haas team principal Gunther Steiner smiled.
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However, Mattia Binotto pointed out that his team has shown it has the ability to react, but at the same time admitted that “the solutions cannot be found in two or three days”.
And the Ferrari boss explained that improving reliability is just a consequence of how much the Italian side was forced to focus on gaining as much engine performance as possible this season, after the difficulties of the previous two years: “We first focused on performance,” said Mattia Binotto, “and once we reached that we thought about reliability, also because these engines are frozen for four years. But that doesn’t mean we took any risks – we thought we had reached a sufficient level of reliability. We will keep working,” – the Ferrari team principal concluded.
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