After the DNF at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona and the unfortunate strategy decision in Monaco, Scuderia Ferrari and Charles Leclerc desperately needed a positive result in Azerbaijan to be able to reduce the gap to Red Bull and continue the title battle. However, for the second time in three races, Charles Leclerc was not able to complete the race, this time after his Ferrari F1-75 encountered another power unit issue, which meant he had to retire from the Baku race, leaving the Monegasque driver once again puzzled.
Charles Leclerc took pole position on Saturday, but could not defend his P1 at the race start, as Red Bull’s Sergio Perez lead the Azerbaijan Grand Prix after the first corner. However, the Maranello team seemed to the right call by pitting the Monegasque driver after an early Virtual Safety Car period and Charles had regained the lead with a solid advantage over championship rival Max Verstappen.
But on lap 19 of 51, the Ferrari F1-75’s power unit suddenly failed, leaving a gutted Charles Leclerc to return to the pits, a trail of smoke in his wake, just like a few weeks ago in Spain. Ferrari’s horrible weekend was completed by the fact that Carlos Sainz also retired from the Azerbaijan GP, as he suffered a a hydraulic issue while he was sitting in fourth place.
Things could not have gotten any worse for the Maranello team in Baku, yet Charles Leclerc found it difficult to wrap his head around the reliability problems affecting the Italian side after the positive start to the 2022 F1 campaign, with two race wins from the first three events:
“We have been fast and we didn’t have big problems in the first part of the season,” Charles Leclerc said in an interview for Sky F1 after his incident – “Now it seems we have a bit more compared to the beginning of the season, but we haven’t changed massive things. If anything, we made things better. So it’s difficult to understand, but we will have to analyze it. Obviously, I don’t have the full picture of what happened today, but, personally, again, it hurts.” – he explained.
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Scuderia Ferrari’s awful outcome at the Baku City Circuit, coupled with Charles Leclerc’s retirement while in P1 at the Circuit de Catalunya in Spain, means that the Monegasque driver is now third in the Drivers’ championship ahead of the Canadian Grand Prix, 34 points behind Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.
“It’s just much harder, any DNF is hard obviously, now it’s not the third in row but to be honest Monaco felt like a DNF. It’s the third disappointment in a row and it’s not easy. But overall I’m confident that mentally I will be as strong as I was five races ago – when I was leading the championship – at the next race. The motivation is still there but we need to get on top of those things and obviously reliability is something that we need to look into after the last three races. As a team maybe we need to do a step on that.” – Charles Leclerc concluded.
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