17/06/2022
NEWS STORY
Ferrari has admitted that the power unit Charles Leclerc used in last weekend's Azerbaijan Grand Prix is "beyond repair".
"Investigation confirmed Charles' Baku PU is beyond repair," said the Maranello outfit in a brief statement. "One possible cause of the failure is that it occurred as a consequence of the PU problem in Spain.
"We are now working on countermeasures to strengthen the package and the situation is under control."
The Monegasque suffered a failure just 21 laps into the race whilst battling the Red Bull pair. His retirement was the second in three races having suffered an issue in Spain also, this time whilst cruising to almost certain victory.
Now down one engine from his pool, Ferrari will have to decide when to introduce a new unit, the Italian outfit aware that with 15 races remaining, penalties are likely to follow in the not too distant future.
While the Maranello outfit has already said that it is working on a short-term fix for the hydraulics issue that sidelined teammate, Carlos Sainz, it is the other engine-related failures that Kevin Magnussen and Guanyu Zhou suffered that will be causing concern.
"Obviously we are not in the best situation possible," said Leclerc, who is already onn his third turbocharger of the season and second ICE, MGU-H and MGU-K.
"For the power unit change I think there are still ongoing discussions," he added. "We will try push as much as possible the decision, but for now, no decisions are taken.
"It's not the best situation to be in," he admitted. "It's up to us to choose the best track you want to get a penalty, if you get a penalty. This is one of the tracks where it is quite easy to overtake.
"But there are also some other tracks in the next three or four races where it's easier to overtake too. We'll discuss and try to take the best decision from there."