Ferrari lacking answers over F1 Azerbaijan GP engine problems

Leclerc was leading the race he was forced to retire with an engine failure, just two races after a similar disappointment in Barcelona, while Sainz had reported a brake-by-wire failure after going down an escape road, with the team clarifying that it was a hydraulic issue.

Haas driver Kevin Magnussen also retired with an engine failure in the latest of a series of issues that has hit Ferrari’s customer teams, as Alfa Romeo's Zhou Guanyu also retired.

Speaking shortly after Sunday’s race, Binotto said it was too early to give any details about what broke or if the retirements were related to earlier issues.

"We still need to analyse and understand,” he said when asked to explain the issues. “I think you can at the two cars, they had different problems. With Carlos now we'll look at the hydraulic system, and hopefully we'll identify it.

“On Charles a different one, certainly engine related, I think it's quite obvious by the smoke. Is that something we had in the past? I don't think so, but maybe yes, and we do look as well at what happened to our customer teams.

“But I don't think only with the telemetry data we can have a clear answer to the problem. The components will be shipped back to Maranello and as usual, disassemble and try to understand and to fix them as soon as possible.

“Is it something which is down to quality, reliability, whatever else, usage? I don't know yet. But I think it's no doubt that when you've got so many reliability problems, there is a concern.

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, walks back to his garage after retiring from the race

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

“I know that in terms of performance effort, the redesign of the full power unit, we made a fantastic job. But that means as well