Ferrari investigates what caused Charles Leclerc’s technical failure on lap 39 of the Bahrain GP, while the Monegasque was brilliantly defending third place which would have given the Scuderia a podium finish that would have represented a less disastrous way to start the new Formula 1 championship as compared to what the numbers say after the Sakhir weekend.
The Prancing Horse team, by virtue of Carlos Sainz’s fourth place, is fourth in the Constructors’ standings preceded by Red Bull, Aston Martin (the surprise in this start of the 2023 F1 season, but then not that much taking into consideration the indications from pre-season testing) and Mercedes, while the prospects for the new campaign was for Ferrari to challenge the world champions.
The SF-23 has shown all its weaknesses, indicating which key points need to be treated and resolved. Let’s start with the most striking fact: Charles Leclerc’s stop due to an electrical problem. The control unit failed and the power unit went out forcing Charles to pull over with the SF-23 car silenced.
The retirement came after the ERS system battery was replaced in the morning, which was also followed by the precautionary changeover of the ECU. It didn’t help. The problem came up again punctually, a sign that the EC is only the consequence and not the cause of all these troubles.
It is very probable that there was a current dispersion in a wiring and suddenly the electronics failed, perhaps also due to the very strong vibrations on a track like Sakhir or to temperatures that may have affected a wire: we’re talking about a failure that in Ferrari’s history has often been used as an excuse for other problems, but it’s a problem that hasn’t been seen since for a long time.
And only by disassembling the individual components will it be possible to understand what are the possible component damages that may derive from the blackout. The components that go into the car are checked by the quality department, so there may have been an assembly error. A human error.
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In fact, the anomaly was only seen on Charles Leclerc’s single-seater, with the Monegasque that seems to always be the one affected by these problems in the last two years, recalling on social media the troubles that had beset Jean Alesi and Rubens Barrichello in the past (without wanting to bring Chris Amon into discussion), as pointed out Franco Nugnes for motorsport.com.
Identifying the exposed (or burnt) wire will not be easy, luckily there is time to replace it. It remains to be understood what effects Charles’ issue may have: if both ECUs are damaged, the Monegasque will be forced to take a 5-place grid grid penalty already in Jeddah, dragging the effects of this unfortunate problem to the Saudi Arabian GP as well.
Unfortunately, the SF-23 also showed other shortcomings: the pace in the race was disappointing. It seemed clear that the Prancing Horse tacticians saved up a set of new softs in qualifying not so much to hope to challenge the Red Bulls, but to defend themselves against the threat of Aston Martin.
A fact: in the first stint Charles Leclerc didn’t go faster than last year with the SF-75 when he won the race, while Max Verstappen increased his pace by six tenths. Tire wear is a problem. Perhaps amplified by the abrasive asphalt of Sakhir.
Fred Vasseur made it clear that the SF-23 design is not wrong, but there was a car setup problem for Bahrain. The SF-23 took to the track in the first round of the season with too little downforce in search of efficiency and top speeds, but paying for the lack of grip in the rear tyres.
Ferrari are confident things will improve in the next rounds. Some complain about not using the more loaded wing equipped with a main profile with more chord and the mono-pylon support.
During the tests, the DRS control had broken, while in free practice there were worrying lateral oscillations which determined the Italian side to postpone testing that solution at this stage. Ferrari had no intention of using the most loaded wing during the race weekend: the technicians’ goal was to collect data to understand how to develop the SF-23, correlating the numbers with those in the gallery.
There was only one component in the garage and not the necessary supplies to participate in a GP with two cars. The settlements have demonstrated a structural weakness of the single pylon, a construction that is not part of the recent culture of the Maranello team. It is surprising that a week after failing in the tests, a solution has not been found to use the new rear wing at least for a few laps.
If we add that at the beginning of qualifying Charles Leclerc had the lower part of the carbon gull wing detached from the front wheels, a weakness of the Ferrari also emerges terms of standard parts.
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