In Miami, Ferrari had already introduced power unit 2s on all six cars powered by the Maranello Scuderia at the fifth race of the season in Miami – in addition to the F1-75s of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz also the Alfa Romeos of Valtteri Bottas and Guan Yu Zhou and the Haas of Mick Schumacher and Kevin Magnussen – the specific ‘2’ (out of the three allowed by the regulation) to which changes related to thereliability.
Yesterday in Barcelona, however, precisely the power unit 2 betrayed both Charles Leclerc that Guan Yu Zhou. For the Alfa Romeo driver, the problem is linked to overheating, which is why Valtteri Bottas also saw the Grand Prix in Saudi Arabia end prematurely (it is the Finnish driver’s only ‘zero’ in a very good start to the season) . Bottas himself also recorded an engine knockout in Friday’s free practice. Charles Leclerc spoke on the radio about a turbo problem, but only the checks in place at Maranello will be able to identify exactly what went wrong with the engine of the F1-75 # 16.
Certainly for Leclerc it is unlikely that the drive unit can be reused, at least according to what was declared by team principal Mattia Binotto at the final press conference held in the evening in Barcelona: “Retrieve the power unit? I have no idea, but it is very difficult if you stop like this. We will see after the analyzes, maybe we will no longer be able to use a couple of components and recover the others “.
Next weekend we race in Monaco, but it is above all the next two races that are worrying about the power unit issue. In Baku and Canada the engines will count a lot and will be put under stress as straights in Azerbaijan and Montreal abound. Other stops are to be avoided, also because the current situation linked to the Ferrari’s ‘fleet’ of engines suggests that in the end of the season it will be necessary to incur some penalties on the starting grid, while Max Verstappen is still at the first engine unit with which has already covered six full race weekends.
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