Charles Leclerc denies Ferrari has given him an early 2020-spec engine for this weekend's Brazilian Grand Prix.
A failure during Saturday practice in Austin left the Monegasque using an old unit for the rest of the weekend, something the Italian team has blamed for their poor performance.
And despite efforts to salvage the engine back at Maranello, Ferrari was left with no choice but to fit a new one for Sao Paulo.
“Obviously this weekend won’t be easy with the 10-place grid penalty but I believe it was the best opportunity for us for the rest of the championship,” Leclerc explained on Thursday.
“I will try to limit the damage as much as possible this weekend and try to do the best result possible and then I’m pretty sure we will see the advantage of changing the engine in Abu Dhabi."
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It was speculated, however, that Ferrari could take the opportunity to test next year's power unit but the 22-year-old denied it.
"I don’t think so. We haven’t spoken about it," he said.
"The phone call I had was basically that we are putting in the same engine spec as the one we’ve lost in Austin. I don’t think there was any discussion for this possibility."
As the Scuderia looks to challenge Mercedes for the F1 title next year, however, the continued unreliability is a problem for team boss Mattia Binotto.
“All of them, every single one, all different. It’s not a single factor or commonality, which is even more worrying," he revealed.
“Because if you’ve got one single problem you may address it. The fact we’ve got different problems is showing our entire process is not strong enough towards reliability.
"If we would be more reliable, we would have more victories and I think that is the key point for us,” he added.
“Looking at the future, to become the world champion, we must become more reliable than we are at the moment.”
