Following the strategic mistakes of the last Monaco Grand Prix, the Ferrari team spent much of the time leading up to Azerbaijan analyzing where they went wrong, but their doubts were quickly dispelled thanks to a fantastic pole position achieved by Charles Leclerc.
Already in the race, the Italians recovered from Sergio Pérez overtaking the Monegasque at the start, although they watched in amazement as the other red car stopped on lap 10 . Carlos Sainz, who was riding in fourth position at this start in Baku, seemed to be keeping his tires to try an attack on the Red Bulls at the end of the test, but a hydraulic failure, as the team itself recognized, ended all his options.
So, Leclerc was the only hope at Maranello, and everything seemed to be going from strength to strength under full sail, the Ferrari said enough, expelling a large amount of smoke on the main straight of this demanding urban track. The withdrawal of the Monegasque put the double on a platter for his rivals from Milton Keynes, who did not fail and won some valuable, but painful for those in red, 44 points , since they also achieved the fastest lap with Checo.
Due to this, the head of the Italian team, Mattia Binotto , went out to speak to the media to clarify what had happened to their drivers: “We will not have answers immediately, and for the rest of the season we will have to analyze everything to be stronger for the future”.
Asked by DAZN F1 about the components they had used, since they fitted new parts to Leclerc’s car before the start of the race in Azerbaijan, and about the risks of a possible penalty at the next rounds, the Swiss said: ” We have to understand what has happened, everything could be fine, I still don’t know, we will have to see it first, and what needs to be done, will be done.
“I think it will have an impact on performance, we will have to see what the problem was and make our power unit stronger in the future,” explained Mattia Binotto. “We don’t know if we have to take action in the short, medium or long term, we have to see what happened, but it’s soon.”
“[Leclerc’s] engine will return to Maranello, we will analyze and investigate, and for sure as a team we will find a solution. This is a team that can solve these setbacks, and they will do so in the future,” continued the boss of the Italian team.
With this double abandonment and the two Red Bulls on top of the podium at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Ferrari remains 80 points behind in the constructors’ championship, a very large distance considering how they were at the beginning of the course.
In the first tests, those from Maranello enjoyed a very powerful single-seater, perhaps the most on the entire grid, but the tables have turned and now they must row against the current to recover lost ground.
“I think the drivers are as disappointed as we are, because we are part of a team, part of a problem and part of the solution, they all know the effort we have made to get where we are today, and they are aware that we still have work to do. do to be stronger,” Binotto said.
“They are part of the effort, they will support us in the way they can and we are all together as a team,” said the head of the most successful team in the history of Formula 1, who will have to make an effort to try to reap a new title after his last for drivers in 2007 and for constructors in 2008 .
