Frederic Vasseur: Ferrari never expected Charles Leclerc’s race-ending issue at the Bahrain GP

Charles Leclerc's Bahrain GP ended rather early after an engine issue - a new one, that according to Frederic Vasseur, Ferrari had no idea about.

Frederic Vasseur: Ferrari never expected Charles Leclerc’s race-ending issue at the Bahrain GP

Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur

It’s fair to say that Ferrari’s season isn’t off to the greatest start. In pre-season testing, it became apparent that Red Bull were the team to beat, again, and they looked supreme. Generally, Ferrari looked like their closest challenger, but there was a new, surprising threat – Aston Martin. The Bahrain Grand Prix weekend unraveled in spectacular fashion for the Scuderia. Qualifying was fine, but not without some hiccups for Charles Leclerc.

Just before he had started his first flying lap of the session, one of Leclerc’s wheel arches came off. Certainly not a great sign – you never want to start the season with components flying off. It got a lot worse during the race. Even with the extra fresh softs he had saved up, Leclerc couldn’t keep up with Max Verstappen at all. The tire degradation issues from last season seem to be persisting. But then, the Monegasque was suddenly out of the race.

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On lap 41, he stopped by the side of the track, and the cause, as suspected, was related to the engine. But it was from a different issue than the ones the team faced in 2022. Apparently, according to formu1a.uno, it was because of an issue with the energy stores on Leclerc’s car – which had been replaced that morning, along with the control electronics. They were replaced as a precaution – clearly did not work out, though.

And the issue caught Ferrari completely off-guard – they had not expected anything of the sort. As per RaceFans, team principal Frederic Vasseur said: “Honestly we don’t know yet what’s happened exactly. There’s been an issue this morning, we changed the parts, we don’t know where it’s coming from and we’ll have the investigation soon. But it’s too early stage for me to give you a better answer.”

Read More: Charles Leclerc already facing engine penalty after Bahrain GP retirement – Report

Frederic Vasseur: Charles Leclerc’s issue a ‘first’ for the new Ferrari car

Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur
Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur

Reliability issues were chief among the things that Ferrari needed to solve. Last season, Charles Leclerc retired from the lead twice with an engine issue – in Spain and Azerbaijan. Then in Austria, Carlos Sainz’s car caught fire when he was chasing down Max Verstappen. Obviously, they expected that the issues were solved, and during pre-season testing, they had pretty smooth running.

So, this issue was a ‘first’ for Ferrari. On this, Frederic Vasseur said: “We never expected to have something like this because it’s the first time that we had it. We didn’t face the same issue at all during the six or seven thousand kilometres that we did with the engines last week with the three teams. And we never had the same issue on the dyno throughout the winter. But again, we need to do a full investigation before to be able to give you a proper answer.”

There’s another concern: Leclerc’s energy store (where the issue apparently lay) was the second of two components, with the first having been swapped out for a precaution, and sent back to the factory for checks. If it isn’t ready to use by the time of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix in roughly two weeks, Leclerc will have to take an engine penalty. He will probably have to take one in the future anyways, which has already put him on the back foot.

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