Now there is also confirmation: Charles Leclerc’s engine is safe. The preview was given by Corriere dello Sport with Fulvio Solms, but it couldn’t be otherwise, given that the Monegasque driver ended up against the barriers at turn 6 during the formation lap of the Brazilian GP grid due to a black electronic out which literally blocked the power unit and all the services served by the hydraulic system: brake-by-wire, gearbox, differential, power steering.
Charles’ SF-23 still has to return to Maranello to be dismantled, but the accurate analysis of the telemetry data has directed the search for information and it seems that the element that generated the alarm was the differential. The failure of a sensor would have sent the signal that there was a serious problem in the transfer case, when there would actually have been no failure. But the alarm was so serious that it exceeded the first danger threshold, activating the second protection which drastically blocked the hydraulic system and all the systems that are activated as mentioned above.
Charles Leclerc against the Interlagos barriers on the training lap of the Brazilian GP
The blocking of the rear wheels of the red car, therefore, would have started from the differential: on television we saw the light smoke from the tires before the SF-23, devoid of any form of control (the steering was locked without the power steering) crashed into the barriers.
The Cavallino technicians will now have to understand why the entire car went into protection without there actually being a breaking point. Both Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc suffered problems with the clutch setting. It cannot be ruled out that the origin of the problem arose from a change made in the management of the take-off.
Although it may seem paradoxical, something must have happened as in an alignment of the planets in space: an unthinkable sequence of small facts would have determined that Charles Leclerc suddenly became a “passenger” of his car without control. It’s a good thing that it happened before the start of the GP and not while the Ferrari driver was already in the race, because it’s easy to imagine what could have happened.
Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari
This serious episode has highlighted that there are “holes” in the red car’s control system and it will be up to the electronics who respond to Enrico Cardile and Enrico Gualtieri to find the solution so that, to save a part of the mechanics, a driver could end up against the barriers. All’s well that ends well…
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