Ex-Ferrari engineer can’t explain Charles Leclerc’s Bahrain technical issue “from a mechanical perspective”. Luigi Mazzola's comments on Ferrari's result and performance in the Bahrain GP.

Engineer Luigi Mazzola, a former Ferrari team member, commented on the events and outcome in the first round of the 2024 Formula 1 championship, the Bahrain Grand Prix, in an interview for the Sky Sport F1 show Race Anatomy.

Luigi Mazzola’s comments on Ferrari

Here are some of his most important statements: “Ferrari is more competitive if we look at last year’s Bahrain race. There’s also, however, an entire season of developments, where Ferrari has shown improvement in terms of car pace.” – he pointed out – “In the end, if we look at the last GP, Abu Dhabi, it was about 17 seconds, more or less, behind Max Verstappen. In the race, they weren’t doing badly; consistency had improved.” – the former Ferrari engineer believes.

“So, if I look at how the 2023 Formula 1 Championship ended and how the new one started, what do I see? I see that Ferrari is better than Mercedes, McLaren, and Aston Martin compared to last year, but the gap from Red Bull is the same.”

“I say this because when I was in charge of testing and the debut of the new car in development, the old car was brought onto the track; but not the one from the first Grand Prix, the one from the end of the year.” – the Italian explained – “So a comparison was made between the two cars: the one that had finished the previous Championship against the new one, that’s what was examined.”

On Charles Leclerc’s technical issue in the Bahrain Grand Prix

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“It’s hard to give an evaluation. If it’s an imbalance between the front and rear, you can fix it; between right and left, no, so I don’t know how it was addressed during the race. I can’t explain it from a mechanical perspective.”

On Carlos Sainz and his last season with Ferrari
“This year he has a great opportunity: to show, carefree, what he is capable of. He is the famous underdog, but he is fast,” concluded engineer Luigi Mazzola.