Ahead of his home weekend at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Carlos Sainz had finished second in Friday’s first free practice session before going fourth in FP2, finishing the first day three tenths of a second off the time of his teammate Charles Leclerc.
However, Ferrari have now revealed that a fuel system problem in Sainz’s car has forced them to complete a chassis change ahead of Saturday’s session at the Spanish GP.
FIA technical delegate Jo Bauer announced the change in his latest update on Saturday morning, confirming that the technical verification declaration form for that car had been completed after the chassis change.
Ferrari later confirmed that it was due to “a fuel system problem”, which fortunately does not carry a penalty or sanction for the change of chassis.
Ferrari unveiled a number of updates to its F1-75 on Friday at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, which Sainz felt had “potential” to help the team return to racing against Red Bull at the front of the grid.
“We have seen some changes in the behavior of the car, which is good when you bring updates, because you want to see real changes,” said Carlos Sainz.
“So yeah, happy to see that they work and deliver. At the same time, I think we didn’t take the right steps for FP2 and got a bit slower.”
“We know maybe which way not to go, and we need to get back to the feeling I had in FP1, which was better.
Despite leading the timesheets in both sessions with Ferrari, Leclerc was concerned about the team’s pace on long runs and complained of tire problems. He stated after FP2 that he hoped the Scuderia could “find a bit of pace for tomorrow” and that “at the moment, we’re just not strong on race pace”.
Sainz is not the only driver who has undergone a chassis change before the last practice session of the Spanish GP this Saturday.
McLaren was forced to change the survival cell on Lando Norris’s car as a result of damage the team discovered to the underside of the car after it went roughly over the curbs.
The FIA also confirmed that both Ferrari and McLaren broke curfew to complete the changes, although it was the first time (and two per year are allowed) that they had done so this year.
