Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, Carlos Sainz suffers from double retirement nightmare at Azerbaijan GP
Ferrari has experienced a double retirement nightmare at Azerbaijan Grand Prix to give another big chance to Max Verstappen and Red Bull.
Ferrari took pole position through Charles Leclerc on Saturday, with Carlos Sainz starting in fourth, but in just 20 laps of Sunday, both of their cars were out of the race. .
Sainz withdrew from fourth place into Round 9 with what the team later confirmed was due to hydraulic problems.
Leclerc was beaten by Red Bull’s Sergio Perez in Round 1 but had a different strategy to both Perez and Verstappen thanks to a well-timed stop under the Virtual Safety Car.
Any chance of Leclerc’s spectacular strike back was thwarted at Lap 20 as smoke billowed from the back of his Ferrari.
Leclerc immediately returned to the pit and rebuilt the car, with what Ferrari confirmed was a problem with the electrical unit.
“It hurts,” Leclerc told Sky Sports shortly after his race ended. “We need to look at it so it doesn’t happen again. I don’t find the right words to describe it. It’s really disappointing. We need to look into it.”
Ferrari also saw two customer cars fail, with Alfa Romeo’s Guanyu Zhou and Haas’ Kevin Magnussen both having to leave midway.
The team will have only seven days to resolve the issues before racing again at the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal.
Leclerc was nine points behind Verstappen in the championship. Verstappen was leading the way and had the fastest lap when Leclerc’s race ended, meaning the reigning world champion could extend that number to 35 points by the end of the race.
If Perez comes in second, he will also overtake Leclerc on the championship standings.
Leclerc’s once-promising season has fallen short in recent races. At the Monaco Grand Prix, its home race, a Ferrari strategist turned a likely win into a fourth-place finish.
Despite taking six pole positions from eight races this year, Leclerc has only converted two of them into wins – his final season was at the Australian Grand Prix on April 10.
Reliability issues used to be a problem for Red Bull at the start of the season. Verstappen’s car failed to finish in 2 of the first 3 races and after the race in Melbourne, the Dutch driver was 47 points behind Leclerc.
