After a race in which everything seemed to indicate that Ferrari would achieve a relatively easy double, in the last laps of the 2022 Formula 1 Austrian Grand Prix, everything got complicated.
First, Carlos Sainz was forced to retire due to a fault in his power unit that caused several explosions and even set the car on fire, forcing him out of the car in a rather unorthodox way.
And, after the appearance of the Safety Car as a result of the abandonment of the Spanish driver, Charles Leclerc saw how a problem in his F1-75 put in clear danger his leadership and his almost assured victory, remembering ghosts of the past when he had to retire in Barcelona and Baku, when unfortunately he was also riding in first position.
What happened to Leclerc’s Ferrari throttle at the 2022 F1 Austrian GP?
Arrived at the last laps of the grand prix, the Monegasque driver put fear in the body of all the members of the Maranello team -who minutes before had seen how they lost an almost assured double- by reporting a problem with the accelerator of his car to through a radio message.
Leclerc explained that something was wrong, since when he released the accelerator pedal and pressed the brake, the car continued to push minimally, that is, the accelerator spring had partially broken and it did not return to its original position, which prevented him from cut off the power of your engine completely.
The accelerator pedal of a Formula 1 works through a spring of “long travel” with respect to the brake pedal, which has a minimum travel. This allows the pilot to accelerate progressively and, in turn, decelerate in the same way, although at the moment of braking, they usually go from a pressure of 100% to 0% in an incalculable margin of time. So a problem like this can obviously cause abandonment for different reasons.
What dangers did Leclerc face due to his throttle problem at the Red Bull Ring?
Several breakdowns caused by the problem in the accelerator could have forced Charles Leclerc to leave in the last moments of the Austrian GP, which would have been a huge setback for Ferrari seeing the course of the race.
The most likely of all could have been a broken gearbox, a system that works quite simply. When the rider accelerates, he allows upshifts, but not downshifts, so not being able to return the throttle to its original position and keep the throttle open, Leclerc had trouble downshifting in the hardest-braking corners, having to push the lever many more times than usual to be able to engage the gears and reduce as many as he wanted, something that could easily have ended the life of the gearbox.
On the other hand, the engine could also have suffered serious damage and, of course, if the failure occurred a few laps earlier, it would have been very difficult to finish the race like that, since the accelerator pedal spring would have probably broken or sinking a little more as the laps went by and it would have reached a point where its return by cutting the power would not have been enough, even preventing the driver himself from being able to brake the car in the corners.
This also explains why, after being far superior throughout the test, the Monegasque driver lost time in the closing laps to Max Verstappen, as he was forced to brake earlier than normal in order to control the car’s deceleration. , as well as the gear changes and the unpredictable reactions of the car in each of the curves.
Charles Leclerc, at the end of the race, after having won the 2022 F1 Austrian GP
