The Monegasque driver looked set to take a comfortable win at the 2022 Formula 1 Spanish Grand Prix until lap 27, when his engine suddenly began to lose power.
Ferrari had no explanations about what happened with the engine of Charles Leclerc’s car in Sunday’s race, and from the Maranello team they wanted to wait to do a detailed investigation in their factory until they made known what happened at the Circuit de Barcelona- Catalonia.
After shipping the power unit that failed overnight to Italy, engineers went to work on Monday morning to disassemble the components and get to the bottom of what happened.
Thanks to this, the red team has discovered that both the turbo and the MGU-H were damaged beyond repair, which will force Leclerc to mount new parts at his local event, the Monaco Grand Prix.
A statement released by Ferrari read: “Having examined the power unit of Leclerc’s car, we have found that the turbo and MGU-H are damaged and cannot be repaired.”
“However, having fully analyzed the failure and its cause, we are satisfied that there has been no design flaw or reliability issue with these components or any other power unit elements,” they added.
The words of the Maranello team suggest that the setback was therefore something punctual, caused by external circumstances or by the way in which the components were used.
The power unit that the Monegasque used in Spain was the second of the season, so for the next test, Ferrari will have to decide whether to go back to the parts they used at the start of the 2022 season or to mount new ones.
Formula 1 rules limit drivers’ use to just three MGU-Hs and turbos per year, so the loss of one of these components can lead to an early grid penalty if similar problems recur.
The Italians explained after the abandonment that they had not had any warning with the loss of power in the engine, and team boss Mattia Binotto said: “It was a sudden setback”.
“I think we found out from Charles [Leclerc], first on the radio, and then from the engineers when they saw the data, so it was really without notice,” said the team’s head
