Charles Leclerc grilled on potential grid penalty at Azerbaijan Grand Prix

Charles Leclerc has refused to confirm whether he’ll take an engine penalty for this weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix as he doesn’t want to hint at Ferrari’s strategy.

The good news for the Monegasque driver is that his Monza power unit wasn’t severely damaged and has returned to the pool.

Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari engine situation explained ahead of Azerbaijan GP

Leclerc retired from Ferrari’s home race, the Italian Grand Prix, when he crashed heavily at the Parabolica corner on the second lap.

While he was clearly shaken up by the crash, his Ferrari SF-26 suffered extensive damage. His power unit, which was brand new, was returned to Maranello for checks and wasn’t available for the Spanish Grand Prix.

That potentially moved Leclerc a step closer to an engine penalty as he returned to an older engine from his pool for the Madring race.

That was a step back as his Monza engine was Ferrari’s second power unit upgrade under the FIA’s ADUO (Additional Upgrade and Development Opportunities) scheme.

Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur told Canal+ that Leclerc would likely have to take an engine penalty and pointed to Baku.

“We’ll see when we have to take an engine penalty with Charles, but I think Baku should be quite suitable,” Vasseur said.

The good news for Leclerc is that his Monza power unit is back in the pool of engines he can use.

The driver, though, may still have to take an engine penalty at some point.

Appearing in Wednesday’s press conference in Baku, Leclerc reused to confirm if he will serve a penalty this weekend.

Asked if he could mimic Kimi Antonelli’s Italian GP performance by racing from the back of the grid to first if he were to take a new upgraded engine and the mandatory grid penalty, Leclerc told PlanetF1.com and other media outlets:: “Well, Kimi went from last to first.

So I don’t know if that’s realistic for us if we will have to take the penalty.

“But as of now it [his Monza engine] is in the pool of our engines that we can use.

“I won’t go too much into the detail on what’s the plan and what engine we will use or not, because that’s still something strategic for us and we don’t want to give that away.

“But it’s definitely back in the pool of engines that we can use, so that’s a good thing.”

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Leclerc will take to the track for Friday’s qualifying, chasing a fourth pole position in Baku.

However, he has never won the grand prix.

Asked if that could change this season, he said: “Well, I don’t know.

“Surely this year qualifying is probably where we struggle the most in terms of car performance.

“So if we are in front in in in qualifying, then I’m hopeful for the race, but before thinking about that, I think we’ve got to prepare the weekend as we should.

“With this year’s car as well, it seems that there’s a lot of variability from one weekend to the other, just based on the optimisation of your power unit.

“On a track like this, it will play a big role as well. So I think that’s where we should focus.

“It’s surely a track that I enjoy driving, and that has been good for me on the Saturday mostly. But the race has been more challenging. So hopefully we can fix that for this year.”

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

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