Even though Ferrari managed to get close to Red Bull in qualifying, on race day the team suffered badly with degradation which sealed their fate in the Bahrain Grand Prix. Before he retired from the last podium spot, Charles Leclerc struggled to match the pace of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez while teammate Carlos Sainz could not defend from eventual third placed man Fernando Alonso. Both Sainz and Leclerc blamed the tough Bahrain circuit surface for exacerbating their problems with tyre wear, which was a common problem with the team last year. However Team Principal Frederic Vasseur believes this is down to car setup rather than the overall concept of the SF-23. "I am completely convinced about this," he told media, including RacingNews365.com . "It's a matter of setup and choices on the car. "It's not a matter of concept at all, I think we don't have to take that into consideration."
Vasseur promises investigation into Leclerc failure
After that talk about focusing on reliability throughout the winter, it was a surprise to see Leclerc's car stop with a problem after the team also made precautionary changes to power unit components prior to the race. Vasseur confirms that the team did not expect the failure, having ran the power units extensively on the dyno in the winter and throughout testing between eight teams without major issues. "We never expected to have something like this because it's the first time we have had it," he explained. "The team also didn't face the same issue at all during the six or seven thousand kilometres that we did with the engines last week with the three teams. "We also never had the same issue on the dyno over the winter, so we need to do a full investigation."
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