Are Ferrari Following Mercedes’ Game-Changing 2021 Strategy Amidst Latest Backfire at Baku?

Ferrari started the season on a high but hasn’t been matching the same standard lately. The Scuderia started working on the F1-75 in 2021 to tackle the regulatory changes which paid off.

The Ferrari F1-75 boasts incredible speed and performance on the track compared to the competition of Red Bull and Mercedes. However, reliability is an issue that is haunting the Maranello-based team for the past few races now. The double retirements in the Azerbaijan GP were the tipping point for the team and now they must make hard choices to tackle the issue.

Carlos Sainz’s race ended first with a hydraulics issue as he parked his car in turn 4. But the major concern is surrounding the power units for Scuderia. A repeat of the Spanish GP played in the minds of Leclerc as his engine failed again while leading the race. Not underestimated back in Maranello, the power unit issue is something the engineers are working on tirelessly. The engines seem to do fine in short runs but give out in the race as Leclerc has the most poles this season.

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After Ferrari updated the internal combustion engine (ICE) there have been two cases of overheating already. And Leclerc’s Baku engine will not be recoverable, which would mean a new engine for Canadian GP along with a penalty. And the grid penalty will cause more misery for Ferrari as they already trail Red Bull in the championship.

Ferrari might have to adopt Mercedes’ 2021 aggressive strategy and accept penalties while trying to close the gap. If not, Red Bull will easily clinch both the titles with no threat from Scuderia Ferrari.

Ferrari driver Leclerc holds an unwanted record after the Baku disaster

The Ferrari Monegasque is exceptional in qualifying, but the same can’t be said for his Sunday outings. Leclerc already sits third on the all-time pole sitters for Ferrari behind only Michael Schumacher and Niki Lauda. However, Leclerc’s race wins statistics are letting him down.

Leclerc has 15 poles in his career so far, but with only 4 wins, he now has the most pole positions with the fewest wins in F1 history. This equates to an underwhelming conversation rate of 26.6%. An extremely poor output from the best position in the race.

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We can credit a lot of missed opportunities to the unreliable F1-75, but this is still a poor conversation rate from Leclerc. We can even tag this as an area of improvement for the Monegasque.