Ferrari entered the Azerbaijan Grand Prix weekend desperately needing a good result having lost out to championship rivals Red Bull in the last four races and inevitably losing the championship lead. Unfortunately, it wasn’t meant to be for the Scuderia as they were plagued by reliability issues.
As has become customary, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc started Sunday’s race from pole position. The Monegasque driver has racked up five poles out of a possible eight so far. In the other three races he started from second. However, he has only been able to convert two of those poles into victories.
Leclerc was joined on the front row by Red Bull’s Sergio Perez who got the jump on him at the start to lead the field into turn 1, after a lockup by the Ferrari driver.
It was on lap 9 that Ferrari’s race began to unravel as Carlos Sainz would retire from 4th with a hydraulic issue. Their issues were further compounded when Charles had a slow pitstop and fell to 3rd. He would regain the lead of the race on lap 18 when the Red Bull duo pit.
Unfortunately, this lead was short-lived, as the sole remaining Ferrari driver radioed into his team on lap 20 “problem, problem, engine”. The Tifosi (Ferrari fans) around the world were again left heartbroken as Leclerc’s Ferrari went up in smoke and he retired from the lead of the race for the second time in three races. It was Ferrari’s first double DNF (did not finish) of the season.
In a rather bizarre string of events, Zhou Ghanyu also retired from the race on lap 24, followed by Haas’ Kevin Magnussen on lap 33. Both teams are Ferrari-powered, leaving the Italian-based manufacturer wondering what went wrong in Baku.
After a strong start to the season, the once title challengers appear to have hit reverse with pace and reliability. Despite Charles’ superior form in qualifying, he has not been able to maximize when it matters most.
Red Bull have won the last five races, with four of those wins belonging to Max Verstappen, who has overcome his own reliability issues to claw back a 55-point deficit to now lead the standings. In the last two races Charles has seen his once comfortable lead disintegrate and has fallen to 3rd place, some 34 points adrift of Verstappen.
As if that wasn’t enough for the driver fighting to become F1’s first Monegasque champion, he finds himself falling back into the clutches of the ever-consistent George Russell.
Ferrari are now in a sticky position as their number of available power units has dwindled significantly, with an inevitable ten-place grid penalty likely sooner rather than later. The scarlet team have just under a week to get it together and hopefully bounce back in Montreal, Canada this weekend.
