“I don’t have the answer,” Mattia Binotto speaks on Ferrari’s reliability problems
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In Azerbaijan, Charles Leclerc suffered from his second retirement of the season in Azerbaijan. The Monegasque had taken pole once again, and for the fourth race in a row, but he was unable to take the victory. While the Red Bull did look somewhat stronger, it was not impossible to think that Leclerc may have kept his lead, or at least finished second. This means Leclerc has retired for the second time in three races.
In Spain and Monaco, he had looked absolutely supreme. He stormed to pole positions on both occasions and looked like he will be winning the races without much of a problem. But a power unit issue meant his retirement from the lead, and a strategy error in Monaco took away another. This means that Leclerc has likely lost at least 50 points in the last three races.
His teammate Carlos Sainz also retired in Monaco, along with Kevin Magnussen and Zhou Guanyu – both of whom drive a Ferrari-powered car. All 4 retirees had mechanical issues and Ferrari engines. Understandably, reliability has become much of a concern at Ferrari, especially as the gap to Red Bull has increased.
Also Read: “We still need to analyze and understand,” Mattia Binotto on Ferrari’s “Double DNF” in Azerbaijan
Mattia Binotto is not certain of where the problem stems from
Speaking to Autosport shortly after the race on Sunday, Mattia Binotto did not have any answers about their reliability issues. According to him, the largest concern at the moment is that the team do not have a clear answer to the problems.
“It is a concern. It’s even more of a concern because I do not have the answer, and I would like to have one right now, and know what was the problem.”
“Only the fact that we will need to fit another new engine, yeah it’s a fact, it’s very early in the season. Sometimes the problems you may have are not a short fix.”
Binotto hopes to finally be able to get on top of Ferrari’s reliability concerns by the next race in Canada, certainly, Ferrari cannot afford any more weekends like this, where they fail to score any points at all, and not due to the driver performances.
“So something that I think we’ll understand in the next days, and hopefully we’ll have a clearer answer by the time we’re in Canada.”
In an earlier interview, he had confirmed that the retirements of the Ferrari duo were due to different reasons, and also showed concern at how their customer teams were doing.
“I think you can at the two cars, they had different problems. With Carlos now we’ll look at the hydraulic system, and hopefully, we’ll identify it. On Charles a different one, certainly engine related, I think it’s quite obvious by the smoke.”
“Is that something we had in the past? I don’t think so, but maybe yes, and we do look as well at what happened to our customer teams.”
“But I think it’s no doubt that when you’ve got so many reliability problems, there is a concern.”
Charles Leclerc’s lead at the top has quickly evaporated, and the same thing has happened to Ferrari. Leclerc was at one stage 46 points in the lead of the championship, but he is now 34 behind, and the points he has lost in these past races have not been his own fault. Ferrari are 80 points away from Red Bull, and they will need to find answers as soon as possible.
Also Read: “The euphoria is completely gone,” Italian media bashes Ferrari after a miserable weekend in Baku
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