Have imploding Ferrari’s F1 title hopes gone up in smoke?

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

But over the course of the following five events, Ferrari’s latest attempt 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 - 34 points. Meanwhile, Ferrari are 80 points behind Red Bull. 

Despite claiming 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 happened 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 on top of those things.” 

Ferrari's reliability crisis

It was a disastrous Azerbaijan Grand Prix for Ferrari as both cars failed to 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 out 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 will only be addressed in the “medium to long-term”. 

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

After further issues in Baku, it is clear that Ferrari have a serious problem. 

"It is 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 fact. 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 clearer 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 Leclerc to turn things around, but it is clear the Monegasque has a mountain to climb if he is going to 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 exactly 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 reliability 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 valuable 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 almost 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, Binotto rejected 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. "We 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 finish first, first you have to finish and we are not yet there."