Scuderia Ferrari Moneagsque driver Charles Leclerc has backed the Maranello team to quickly bounce back after the disappointing outcome of the Spanish Grand Prix last weekend and is confident that the fast identification of the problem which prevented him from taking an easy win in Barcelona will help avoid such moments in the future.
The Ferrari driver was on his way to ending Max Verstappen’s run of consecutive victories, leading the Spanish Grand Prix with a solid gap over Red Bull, but midway through the race he was forced to retire the F1-75 car and return to the pits due to a power unit issue which opened the door to Max Verstappen for another race win, giving him the lead in the Drivers Standings ahead of the Monaco Grand Prix this weekend.
Scuderia Ferrari immediately sent the power unit back to the Maranello factory for a detailed analysis and have since confirmed that the Monegasque driver has lost an MGU-H and turbocharger from his pool. This means that grid penalties are inevitable in the second part of the championship, given that just three of each component are allowed during a Formula 1 season.
Despite this situation, Charles Leclerc confirmed that Ferrari’s fast response in identifying the cause of the failure, which the Italian side feels was not due to a manufacturing flaw – has given the Monegasque driver confidence that it will not happen again:
“I think the team knows where it’s coming from,” Charles Leclerc explained, when asked to comments on the incident from the Circuit de Catalunya – “So this gives me the confidence that it won’t happen again, then whether it will or not – I don’t know. I hope not. The goal is obviously for it to not happen again, but the fact that we identified the issue is already a step forward and I’m fully confident that the team is doing the right job for it to not happen again.” – he added.
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The Maranello team brough its first major updates last weekend in Barcelona and Charles Leclerc feels that the calm, measured approach the Scuderia have taken with the development updates is the correct path at this stage of the 2022 Formula One season:
“I think the start that we had to the season shows that we’ve done the right choices,” he explained – “Of course, there’s been a few races that we have optimised the package a little bit more but, whenever we brought something, it went in the right direction. I’ve said it many times, but in F1, it is not always a given to put something on the car and to have exactly what you expected before putting it on the car. For us, it’s all well. We’ve seen the benefits of it in Barcelona. Unfortunately, we couldn’t finalise it for the reasons we know. But this gives me the confidence that we’ve got the right approach and that we are working in the right direction too, which is a good sign for the championship.” – the Monegasque driver concluded.
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