Leclerc ‘s hopes of coming back at Spa-Francorchamps on Sunday from a penalty that saw him start 15th were dashed early on when he was forced to pit on lap 3 after seeing smoke coming from the front right brake duct of his car.
At the stop, where he changed tires, Ferrari discovered that the problem had been caused by a tear-off (protective sheet from the visor of a helmet) that had become stuck in the brake line.
That would have blocked the airflow to the brake disc and caused massive overheating. It is something that in the past has even forced other drivers to withdraw from the race.
Although the protective foils on the helmets are fairly uniform, making it nearly impossible to distinguish one driver’s from another’s, Ferrari examined on-board footage from the opening lap to find out exactly where it came from.
That showed that in the wake of the melee caused by Lewis Hamilton’s car, which was slowing down the pack after his contact with Fernando Alonso, spewing water and other fluids, Verstappen was one of several drivers who were forced to remove a sheet of his helmet on the way from Paul Frere to Blanchimont .
The world champion later admitted: “It was a super hectic moment, and there was also a lot of dirt. I took out my tear-off because I could hardly see anything due to passing through the previous sector, as if everyone went through the grass or by the gravel, but we survived unscathed.
As Leclerc was riding just behind Max Verstappen at the time, footage showed that it was the Red Bull driver’s foil that was thrown directly towards where the Ferrari driver was passing and got stuck in his brake duct.
Asked by Motorsport.com after the race about the possibility that it was his tear-off that got into Charles Leclerc’s car, Verstappen said: “I hope it wasn’t mine. But there were a lot of things, honestly people …everyone was putting stuff out and it’s super unfortunate, to be honest, for that to happen.”
“You are always afraid of it happening, especially when you are in the peloton because… especially on a track like this, you take them off very quickly. That is your worst nightmare, that these things happen, but yes, unfortunately they do happen” .
As well as being forced to make an earlier stop than expected which left him out of the normal race sequence, the overheating caused by that tear-off also ruined a sensor on Leclerc’s car, causing him to go full throttle into pits in his last pitstop and ended up carrying another penalty that made him lose a position.
