How Ferrari's latest implosion stitched up a plausible Baku upset

Charles Leclerc might have hoped a first-corner lock-up would create the only unwelcome puff of smoke to emanate from his Ferrari in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. Sadly not. Just 19 laps later, clouds erupted out of the back of his car as the engine self-immolated to mark the third win squandered by the team in as many races. That paved the way for Max Verstappen to capture a fifth triumph of the term as Sergio Perez completed a bruising 1-2 for Red Bull.

Ferrari was expected to play second fiddle in Baku, with the flat-out final sector seemingly tailor-made for the top-speed punch of the rebadged Honda power unit that complemented the RB18’s slimline rear wing. Had the target therefore been effective damage limitation for the Scuderia, few would have batted an eyelid. Then it became clear an upset was very much on the cards, thanks to Leclerc’s one-lap credentials and projected race pace.

The double retirement that ultimately transpired for Ferrari was, therefore, little short of a disaster to leave the team needing to address a catalogue of weaknesses that continue to grow as the 2022 season is already one-third complete.

Ferrari started the weekend shrewdly. It allowed Leclerc and Carlos Sainz to find a rhythm on track in first practice and assess the car’s baseline performance. Confident the drivers weren’t going to crash and ruin the parts allocation, a Miami-spec low-drag rear wing was installed for FP2. That offered Ferrari a fighting chance in the speed traps to complement a first half of the lap where purple sectors were easy pickings for the pair of lithe F1-75 machines.

Yet to line up on the grid any lower than second, Baku polesitter Leclerc is stitching together one of the finest year-long qualifying performances. He had to contend with Perez off the line, with the Mexican receiving the brief “elbows out into Turn 1” message on his formation lap. But first place would be his even before the opening 90-degree left-hander.

Leclerc’s initial launch was just fine but before he’d pulled for second gear, the rear Pirellis broke traction as they hit a patch of soft asphalt that had melted in the scorching sun. As he fought wheelspin, Perez was already alongside come the short dash to the first apex. Leclerc locking up the front-left and running wide only confirmed his fall to second. He then had to switch focus to his wing mirrors with a view to keeping third-starting Verstappen behind – the defending champion enjoyed the greatest getaway of the three but was unable to pass when he was boxed in by the front-row contenders.

Perez stole the lead at the start from Leclerc as Verstappen was boxed in behind

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

With Leclerc a touch distracted, Monaco victor Perez could escape to a 1.3s lead at the end of lap one to put himself out of reach of DRS. On a weekend when it looked as though Perez again had the measure of his team-mate as he adapted to the inherent understeer of the new ground-effects Red Bull, he carved out another half-second over each of the next two tours to bolt 2.2s to the good.

Verstappen was soothed by his engineer, who radioed in to confirm “nothing running away from you up front”. In order words, clear Leclerc soon enough and passing Perez to claim the spoils is entirely feasible. His cause might have been helped when the Ferrari, just 0.7s ahead, squirmed under throttle out of the vital Turn 16. Exiting the final braking zone of the lap before the long sprint to Turn 1, Leclerc cost himself speed to allow Verstappen to close with DRS across the line. But a yellow flag denied a wheel-to-wheel scrap.

Having already lost the lead, perhaps Ferrari thought the day couldn’t get too much worse when it transpired that the incident was caused by Sainz parking up in the escape road of Turn 4 only on lap nine of 51. A hydraulics failure called time on what had already been a poor performance from the Spaniard, who had immediately dropped 4s adrift of the leading three cars to relieve some of the pressure facing Red Bull, while also leaving Leclerc and Ferrari without greater support.

The waved yellows soon grew into a virtual safety car, affording Ferrari an opportunity to pounce on its own pain. With a 10s cheaper stop in sight owing to the reduced speeds, the pitwall reacted sharply and hurriedly called Leclerc into the pits as he approached the entry.

Leclerc's second power unit detonation after Barcelona, combined with the Ferrari strategy shambles of Monaco, now mean 63 potential points have been squandered in the past three rounds alone

Leclerc swapped his medium-compound boots for a set of hard tyres. But some of the theoretical gains were undone immediately. The four corners were changed in good time, Leclerc released the clutch and the rear wheels started spinning. However, he was still up in the air and going nowhere.

“The tyres were fitted very soon on the car,” explained team principal Mattia Binotto as part of a lengthy race post-mortem. “We had the green light because the entire system was quick, but both the front and the rear jack were up for whatever it is. I don't know if they were linked, if the rear was a consequence of the front. It's something which we need to look at, and we have no answer yet.”

It took 5.4s before Leclerc was back under way. Yet it wasn’t all bad news at that stage as Red Bull hadn’t covered his strategy sidestep. Although it had tried to. Perez was called in to pit but simply and rather calmly replied: “I missed it.” Speaking to the media, he would later label it “miscommunication… It's the team who decides [when to pit]. At the time I didn't have the information whether we wanted to pit or not. I only got the information too late.”

A sluggish stop for Leclerc would prove the least of his worries

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

Verstappen stayed out also to give Perez a cushion of 2s to his stablemate, while Leclerc was 12.8s back on the supposedly slower C3 Pirelli. But as the McLaren intra-team battle would best prove throughout the 51 laps, first with Daniel Ricciardo behind Lando Norris and then vice versa, the hard tyre proved to be surprisingly fast. Leclerc started pumping in what were, at the time, the fastest laps of the afternoon.

Compounding the VSC-administered woes for Red Bull, Perez’s pace was beginning to decline. As the advantage over Verstappen was whittled away to a second, Perez was told “no fighting” and his DRS-assisted team-mate sailed by into first place on the run to Turn 1 at the start of lap 15. They had comfortably avoided a repeat of the 2018 Ricciardo-Verstappen smash. Team principal Christian Horner reckoned it “wasn’t strictly team orders”, more sheer pragmatism to let the faster car past.

Perez would explain: “Probably we lost a bit of temperature on those tyres [under VSC], at that time, together with some wear [on the mediums]. It was the right call not to fight because I didn't have any pace at the time and Max deserved to be ahead at that point.”

At the end of the following tour, Perez finally had his chance to take on fresh tyres and was switched over to the white-walled hards. But like his front-row rival, Perez was hampered by a slow 5.7s stop. A front-right wheel gun failure led the problems, but the driver releasing clutch before the car was dropped back down didn’t help matters either. In what was becoming a frustrating run, Perez resumed 18s behind Leclerc. Two laps later, Verstappen visited the pitlane for his jump to hards – the stop took a better but still subpar 3.5s – to return with a 13s deficit to the last Ferrari F1-75 standing.

Perez, 4s behind Verstappen, nicked fastest lap as he adjusted well to the hards while Leclerc was busy managing his overheating rears… “that’s the main thing”, his engineer ironically said. But barely three miles later, tyre temperatures would soon prove the very least of the Monegasque’s troubles. He powered the car out of Turn 16, weaved through the high-speed sweep and then his engine blew spectacularly. “Problem, problem!” followed by panting was his only reaction as he coasted into the pitlane and parked up for good.

Once more, a brilliant pole position had come to nothing. The premature garage pack down was under way by half distance and spectators never had the chance to see whether the split strategy would have paved the way for a blockbuster climax on the city streets on the Caspian coast. Leclerc's second power unit detonation after Barcelona, combined with the Ferrari strategy shambles of Monaco, now mean 63 potential points have been squandered in the past three rounds alone.

“To be honest, Monaco felt like a DNF,” said Leclerc. “So, it's a third disappointment in a row. I believe we can win the championship still, but we need to be on top of those things.”

Engine failure for Leclerc spelled his second DNF from the past three races

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

Red Bull had arrived at throttle-heavy Baku with two brand-new engines to take on the task. Leclerc, following his retirement from the lead in Spain, was equipped with a new MGU-H and turbo. But the 1.6-litre combustion engine was the same one used at Barcelona, albeit thoroughly checked over. With a blend of old and new parts, if you’re being particularly unkind, it might be considered a cut-and-shut package that was installed for Azerbaijan. It also creates a lingering problem for Leclerc, who is now guaranteed to serve grid penalties for exceeding his component limits – having already used the maximum-permitted three turbos for the season.

Ferrari stalwart Binotto joined the squad in 1995 originally as a test engine engineer before performing a similar role for the race team from 1997 to 2003. He continued to directly oversee the powertrains through to 2019, when he was promoted to team boss. Speaking about an issue particularly close to his heart and having long since changed out of his Ferrari race clobber, he said: “Is it something which is down to quality, reliability, usage? I don't know yet. But it's no doubt that when you've got so many reliability problems, there is a concern.

"Sometimes the problems you may have are not a short fix. So, I don't know what will be the strategy that we need to adopt" Mattia Binotto

“I know that in terms of performance effort, the redesign of the full power unit, we made a fantastic job. But in terms of product, there is still very little experience and certainly I think in terms of reliability, still there is progress which is required… I would prefer to have good performance and try to fix reliability rather than vice versa.

“Sometimes the problems you may have are not a short fix. So, I don't know what will be the strategy that we need to adopt: if it's simply shorter mileage, or a different type of usage.”

With the Ferrari threat, that had grown so considerably throughout the weekend, petering out entirely, Verstappen was promoted to first place. He held a 4.5s margin over Perez as fifth-starting George Russell inherited two places aboard the draggy, porpoising Mercedes W13 to creep into the podium places – albeit another 7s further back.

Verstappen didn’t exactly check his pace, mind. His lap times went from the low 1m48s into the mid 1m47s. At this point, race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase gently reminded his driver that even though everything can appear under control in Baku, disaster can always strike – as Verstappen knows all too well from his blowout while leading last season.

Rather than comply immediately, though, Verstappen calmly negotiated a lap time target as he made the case that he needed to prevent tyre temperatures from dipping too much. He had gapped Perez to the tune of 10s when yellow flags morphed into a second VSC, called in response to another Ferrari power unit eruption.

After passing Perez, Verstappen inherited the lead and was untroubled to the flag

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Kevin Magnussen, up from 16th, was battling on the fringes of the 10 with Esteban Ocon. As the tussle came to a head, the engine in the back of his Haas blew in similarly smoky fashion to Leclerc's. An aside, Zhou Guanyu stopped his similarly powered Alfa Romeo eight laps previously, but that was attributed to a team-specific cooling issue and not Ferrari.

Magnussen parked up between the inside kerb and the wall at Turn 15 but, as he exited his stricken machine, the descent to the apex allowed his car to roll forward. The Dane had to wave repeatedly to the marshals for assistance to contribute to four minutes of neutralised running while the VF-22 was parked up safely off-line and under control.

Red Bull took the opportunity to pit Verstappen for a second and final time. He took on another set of the dependable hard tyres, which would last him to the flag. And finally, one of the lead protagonists enjoyed a pitstop that was on the money – the crew nailing a 2.7s service. Perez followed suit at the end of the 33rd lap. It was swiftly a case of business as usual, however, as a rear-left delay crafted a 4.4s stop to give Verstappen a lead that was creeping towards 15s.

While Perez would walk away with the point for fastest lap – it is likely Verstappen could have chalked it to cap his perfectly executed race but wasn’t aware of the situation – his team-mate had comfortably the better race pace for the remainder. Verstappen stretched the legs of his RB18 to cross the line for the final time some 20.823s clear.

With that, he snared a 25th Formula 1 victory to draw level in the history books with Jim Clark and Niki Lauda. After the retirements in Bahrain and Australia, Verstappen had departed Melbourne sixth in the championship and 46 points down on Leclerc. Five rounds later, Red Bull has won every race to mark its joint-best start to a campaign since 2011. Verstappen has been victorious for four of the rounds to now top the standings by 21 points over his stablemate, with Leclerc a further 13 in arrears.

Asked about his rival in red, Verstappen said: "Of course, we had our misfortune in the beginning of the year, so we knew that we had to play a bit of catch-up. But it seems it's more or less evened out with the bad luck, and you have to score points every single weekend if you want to really fight for the championship. Everyone knows that.

“I would always say, ‘Shit happens’. It happened to me, it happened to many people in the past. Unfortunately, it's happening to Charles. If I will be in the same situation, I would also be disappointed. I think that's very normal.

“But it's about how you come out of it. You always look at how to improve things. That's what we did as well in the beginning of the season. You learn from it, you don't like it, you're angry, but we turned it around.”

Russell joined the Red Bulls on the podium after Ferrari's double DNF

Photo by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images

After the prancing horses had fallen, consistency king Russell bounced his way over the line in the troublesome W13 another 25s behind Perez. The porpoising had left him with a sore back – you could see him grimace as he sat down for the press conference. Yet he still came away in better shape than his team-mate. Lewis Hamilton had arguably been the star passer thanks to a spate of neat inside overtakes that guided him to fourth. But the 51 laps had taken their toll on his back and he extricated himself from the car incredibly gingerly.

Russell reckoned Mercedes has to “stay open-minded about everything” and that “nothing’s off the table at this stage” as it considers whether to stick or twist with its current car concept. But its problems are at least isolated to the aerodynamics.

"It's still a very young and new car so we will always look to improve. And at the moment, it looks like Saturdays is the biggest room for improvement" Max Verstappen

Ferrari, however, can add engine unreliability to the questions raised in Spain over the durability of its turbo and hybrid configuration. Monaco exposed the strategic shortcomings, too, while there have been several sluggish pitstops plus errors from Leclerc and Sainz to further bleed points.

By contrast, Verstappen only has one real ask of Red Bull right now as it seems to have steadied its reliability ship.

“I want a bit more performance, just for myself on a Saturday, just with the feeling of the car as well,” he said. “On a Sunday, in general, it always feels a bit better. It's still a very young and new car so we will always look to improve. And at the moment, it looks like Saturdays is the biggest room for improvement.”

With Verstappen having now bagged more wins from races when Leclerc has started on pole position than Leclerc has in 2022, perhaps both would be willing to meet in the middle.

Another 1-2 finish for Red Bull has put the team in a commanding position in the championship, which just a few short rounds ago seemed Ferrari's to lose

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images