The spectrum of reliability
“Charles Leclerc’s retirement was a shock. We have never had such problems on the dynamic bench test, not even at 7,000 km of use” – this was the comment of new Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur following the first round of the 2023 Formula 1 championship expressed his astonishment for the unexpected outcome in Sakhir, with a technical failure that prevented Charles Leclerc from fighting for a podium position in the 2023 Formula 1 Bahrain Grand Prix that would have been richly deserved by the Monegasque driver, who proved to be clearly more performing than his Maranello teammate Carlos Sainz throughout the Sakhir weekend.
The reliability of the power unit seemed to be a matter resolved at Ferrari since, as also underlined by Mattia Binotto, the interventions that needed to be carried out after the failures of 2022 were clear. Last Sunday, however, Charles Leclerc once again recorded a DNF in which he was not to blame. This was certainly not the best way to start the run-up to a Drivers’ title that Maranello has been missing for 16 years.
Electrical failure, vibrations identified as a possible cause
“Why do I bounce so much?” Carlos Sainz complained over the team radio during the Bahrain Grand Prix about the SF-23 car being affected by porpoising. As explained by F1 expert Federico Albano for formulapassion.it, the Maranello technicians were forced to stiffen the set-up and lower the car as much as possible to look for aerodynamic load and therefore compensate for the low downforce rear wing. Obviously, a secondary effect of this choice was the phenomenon of ‘bouncing’ underlined in the race by the Spanish driver.
These vibrations could in fact be the real reason for the technical failure on the SF-23 of Charles Leclerc, due precisely to a phenomenon that cannot be simulated on the dynamic bench. According to today’s edition of the Italian newspaper La Stampa, the reason that forced the Ferrari to retire is the failure of a component of the power unit’s electrical system, but only an examination of the parts that arrived yesterday in Maranello will provide the exact diagnosis.
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The origin of the unreliability could be the constant search for a lighter SF-23 car which already from the tests has shown how several pieces are somewhat ‘deformable’ (the retracted nose, the wagging rear wing are just two examples). The vibrations in a straight line could instead have been the cause of a technical failure suffered by “a small element of the control unit, perhaps a part that costs a few euros” writes La Repubblica.
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