Binotto pleads for patience as Ferrari post-mortem begins

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Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc leads the the F1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix. F1

Ferrari's Charles Leclerc leads the the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

Ferrari team boss Mattia Binotto believes the issues that have affected their cars are all completely unrelated after a spate of problems.

Binotto has called for patience and calm as Ferrari begin investigating the issues that ruined their Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

Having started first and fourth on the grid, the Scuderia went home empty-handed after both Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc retired with technical issues on lap nine and 22 respectively.

While Sainz retired with a hydraulic issue, Leclerc’s problems appeared to be related to the power unit as smoke billowed from the back of his F1-75 while he ground to a halt in the pit lane.

It was the second such dramatic retirement for Leclerc, having also been forced out of the Spanish Grand Prix while enjoying a comfortable lead.

“This is undoubtedly a bad day,” Binotto said after the race.

“Compared to last year, we have made great progress in terms of performance, however there is definitely still room for improvement on the reliability front.

“We will analyse the failures we experienced here and will try to manage them until we can get on top of them. There is definitely still work to do.”

With Leclerc revealing his “hurt” after encountering his second such retirement in three races, Binotto said his belief is the issues are all unrelated to each other.

“I think certainly those ones are unrelated and if you look at the one of Carlos’ hydraulic issues, certainly [it] is not the one from Barcelona and maybe it’s a very quick fix,” he told Sky F1.

“But first, as usual, [we need to] keep patience, we need to analyse and try to understand what can be done.”

Five cars retired from the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, four of those being Ferrari-powered. Haas’ Kevin Magnussen also pulled over with a confirmed power unit problem, while Zhou Guanyu retired his Alfa Romeo with an unconfirmed technical problem.

Binotto explained the failures of the customer teams will also be carefully examined.

“I think we need to analyse those ones. I think the one of Zhou maybe is not related to our supplied component,” he said.

“But again, it’s something to look at. Overall, whatever is happening there, it’s always useful.

“The reason why we are supplying customer teams is not for our business, is not really great for economics – it’s more to have technical feedback.

“So whatever is happening is certainly useful. We will take our time to analyse those components as much as we are doing for the ones which are fitted on the red cars.”