After the third race of the season in Australia, Charles Leclerc and Ferrari appeared unstoꦜppable after two wins and a second place finish. Leclerc sat 34 points clear in the championship and held a 46-point advantage ove⛄r main rival Max Verstappen. 

But over the course of the following five events, Ferrari’s latest attemp🉐t to end its long wait for an F1 title has wilted in spectacularly sudden fashion. 

After his grand prix ended in a cloud of smoke following his second engine failure in three races, Leclerc now finds himself trailing Verstappen by the buffer he once boasted - 34ও points. Meanwhile, Ferrari are 80 points behind Red Bull. 

Despite cla♈iming six pole positions this season, Leclerc has failed to convert the last four into victories, with three of 🌞them won by Verstappen. 

Leclerc’s Baku blow-up comes just two races after the♍ same happ൲ened while he was leading last month’s Spanish Grand Prix at Barcelona. 

“It hurts,” Leclerc told Sky. “It’s more than significant. I don’t really have the words to be honest. It’s just a huge disappointment and I hope we can jump back from it and be o🥂n top of those things.⛄” 

Ferrari's reliability crisis

It was a disastrous Azerbaijan Grand Prix for Ferrari as both cars failed t𓃲o finish Sunday’s race, with Carlos Sainz the first retirement of the day when he pulled over with a hydraulic issue. 

Then 💃on Lap 20, Leclerc’s engine dramatically let go as he entered the main straight, forcing him into the pits to join his teammate on the sidelines. 

What’s more, the Ferrari-powered Alfa Romeo of Guanyu Zhou and Kevin Magnussen’s Haas also dropped ꦍout with mechanical problems. 

Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto had admitted before the race that the Italian outfit has a reliability concern with their F1 engine that he said wil𒆙l only be addressed in t♐he “medium to long-term”. 

Leclerc’s 𒆙failure in✨ Barcelona was followed by three MGU-K failures for Ferrari customers Alfa Romeo and Haas at the next race in Monaco. 

Aft❀er further issues in Baku, it is clea♒r that Ferrari have a serious problem. 

"It ౠis a concern,” Binotto said. “And even more a concern because I do not have the answer I would like right now as to what was the problem.

"We will need to fit another new engine, it's a 𒈔fact. It's very early in the season. Sometimes the problems you may have are not short fixes, so I don't know what will be the strategy we need to adopt. Is it shorter mileage or a different type of usage, or a short fix because what happened is a short-fix solution?

"It is something we will understand in the next [few] days and hopefully we will have a cleare🍒r answer by the time we are in Canada."

Is there any way back for Leclerc? 

With 14 races still remaining, there is both time and enough points up for grabs for L♌eclerc to turn things around, but it is clear the Monegasque has a mountain to climb if he is going ౠto win his maiden world title this year. 

This season has already demonstrated how quickly and dramatically the championship momentum can swing, but Ferrari must get to the bottom of exactlܫy what has been going wrong if they are going to stop Verstappen running away with it. 🐲;

One crumb of comfort for Leclerc is the pace of his F1-75 challenger, especially in qualifying, but it will count for very little if Ferrari cannot address their reᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚliability woes. 

More pain could yet be on the way for Leclerc, who is likely to be hit with at least one grid penalty down the line for exceeding power unit🃏 components. 

Leclerc lost valua🍬ble engine components (turbo, MGU-H) in his Spain failure, forcing Ferrari to switch him onto his third turbo of the year for Baku. The next change will trigger a 10-place grid drop. 

And with so many races still left to run, it is al🏅most guaranteed that Leclerc will have to use a fourth MGU-H and turbo - at least - later in the campaign. 

Despite the huge blow to Leclerc’s title hopes, Bin♌otto rejec🙈ted the suggestion that the Canadian Grand Prix has now become a must-win. 

"I don't think it is a must-win at all," he said. "W꧅e will be focused race by race to try and optimise our potential. Today something went wrong. Lesson learned, try to understand, move forward and try to do it as soon as possible.

"Reliability is a key element of overall performance. To finiཧsh first, first you have to finish and we are not yet there."