Ferrari explain Charles Leclerc issue: cylinder failure, not MGU-H. Ferrari explain Charles Leclerc issue: cylinder failure, not MGU-H.

Ferrari has revealed Charles Leclerc’s loss of power while leading Formula 1’s Bahrain Grand Prix was the result of an engine-cylinder failure and not the MGU-H, as first indicated.

Polesitter Charles Leclerc dropped to third at the start, but regained the lead early on and looked set to take a brilliant win until he lost power in the closing stages and was passed by Lewis Hamilton. Radio messages between Charles Leclerc and the Ferrari pitwall suggested the car had lost its MGU-H recovery system, but team principal Mattia Binotto clarified that the issue was solely related to the internal combustion engine.

Mattia Binotto said an investigation to find the cause of the problem was taking place, and that Ferrari would carry out further checks to at its Maranello base and in practice for the Chinese Grand Prix.

“We are checking the engine now so we do not have yet a clear explanation of what happened,” he said. – “It is an engine problem. We had miscombustion on one cylinder but [the reason is yet] to be understood. The engine will go back to Maranello for careful checks because when something like this happens you need to take your time to do your checks carefully. But the engine was running at the end of the race so it is still able to run. We will use it certainly on the Friday in China and we have an entire Friday to assess its behaviour, its functionality and its performance.”

Asked about suggestions the problem was related to the MGU-H, Mattia Binotto said: “I don’t know where the rumours came from.

“There was nothing wrong with the MGU-H. “When something like that happens you try to move on the recovery in terms of any combustion control mapping that you may do, at least you try to change mappings.  You try to see if there is any way to make it better. That was not the case today so we had to manage the race. It has been a brave decision to continue racing in those conditions. But at the end it was a third place that was important so probably the right decision.”

Mattia Binotto said he is confident the failure was an isolated incident and curing it should be simple: “It is a single problem that will be easily addressed,” he said – “It is not related to the way we are using the engine or the mapping or whatever. It has to be a single component failure that we will find out.”