Ferrari points out Red Bull's reliability: "Not wishing bad luck on Max"

After a strong start to the season, since Imola results have taken a negative turn for Charles Leclerc, who suffered two crashes in the last four races and failed to win a race. Jock Clear, senior performance engineer at Ferrari and Leclerc's driver coach, admits his team may need a breakdown from Max Verstappen to make up the current deficit.

The disappointing results of recent races have been partly due to unfortunate decisions by Ferrari, but like Verstappen, Leclerc has also encountered bad luck twice. According to Clear, the bad luck of both teams is an indication that reliability will be an important factor later in the season, he said on the F1 Nation-podcast.

"We've seen it happen," the Ferrari engineer referred to the earlier breakdowns. "Not wishing bad luck on Max or wanting to win it by virtue of DNFs, but reliability will play a part in this championship later in the year, for everyone," he added.

To win the championship, the team needs to be on top of its game. More strategic mistakes like in Monaco or driver errors like Leclerc's in Imola are therefore not desirable. "What we need to do is make sure we do the best possible job in every race in terms of performance," Clear concluded.