Italian team boss Mattia Binotto said that F1-75 reliability became a concern after turbo and MGU-H problems in Spain in Charles Leclerc's car
The start of the 2022 Formula One season saw Ferrari banking on the durability of the F1-75, while Red Bull and its RB18 dealt with problems. However, at the Spanish GP, the Italian squad saw a mechanical breakdown strike Charles Leclerc's car.
If at the beginning of the year the Maranello team relied on the reliability of its car to be consistent and often appear at the top of the points zone, the race in Catalonia saw the team throw away important points - as at the time of his engine failure, Leclerc was leading the race comfortably.
"Reliability is always a concern. And when something is happening, it's never great - so it's worrying us. We are analyzing what happened (in Spain)," Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto said. "Sometimes you have direct explanations. (Problem) can be caused by external accidents, by exceptional circumstances, and other times it can be a real concern," he added.
Ferrari did its internal analysis of the problem in Leclerc's F1-75 and found failure and damage to the turbo and the MGU-H - the battery responsible for generating electrical power from the heat of the cars' exhaust. According to Binotto, the root cause of the malfunction has been found and solved - and the head of the Italian team admitted that reliability will be a very important piece in the F1 2022 chess game.
"Reliability has been a key factor so far in the championship, because we failed in Spain. For Red Bull, it has been too - they have three DNF'S, we have one," he said. "Our client teams have also had problems, so (reliability) is as much a challenge as the performance of the cars. When you have durability concerns, it's never obvious to fix them in the short term," he concluded.
"So yes, it is a concern. It doesn't mean we're too worried. I hope Christian (Horner) is more worried than I am! But we will do our best work from here to the end of the season and hopefully everything will be smoother and clearer," Mattia Binotto finished.
Ferrari will be able to show that it has solved the problems of F1-75 for good next week. That's when Formula 1 returns, between June 10-12, with the Azerbaijan GP.GRANDE PRÊMIO follows everythingLIVE and in REAL TIME.