Charles Leclerc’s fourth place in the Bahrain Grand Prix came as a surprise to Ferrari after the braking problems he suffered from the start of the race.
The difference between the temperatures of his front brake discs exceeded 100C at times, the Ferrari driver revealed.
“It was impossible to drive properly,” he told the official F1 channel. “We had big problems with the brakes. We will investigate what happened in order for it to not happen again.
“This obviously was a big issue. In the first 10 laps it was impossible. Every lap I was doing, I would brake, three or four metres earlier. But the issue was getting much, much worse every lap.
“So every time I was basing my feeling on the previous lap, but in the meantime the issue was a lot more. So I would get there and I would lock up like crazy again. So it felt pretty bad.
“Then it stabilised, but in a place that was completely out of the proper window. On the radio the team told me that it was more than 100 degrees split between front right and front left and that stayed for the whole race. So, we were in a very, very bad place.”
Having started second, Leclerc was unable to keep his team mate Carlos Sainz Jnr and Sergio Perez’s Red Bull behind him. He also lost a place to George Russell’s Mercedes, but reclaimed fourth from him before the end.
Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur admitted “it was a bit unexpected” Leclerc was able to take fourth place “with all the issues that we had at the beginning of the race.”
“We had a big difference on the front brake temp and it wasn’t manageable into the car,” he explained. “It meant that he had to suffer like this the first 20 laps. Then at one stage it came back and he was able to have a decent pace the last part of the race.”
Although Carlos Sainz Jnr was able to salvage third place in the team’s other car, Vasseur admitted he had “a bit of a mixed feeling” about their performance in the first race of the season.
“If you compare to already yesterday, we probably missed the pole position. Today we had issues with Charles on track and Carlos was not in the best position at the beginning. He had a very strong comeback, he was very solid all race and at the end we closed part of the gap with Red Bull.
“But it’s not enough and we have to push and to continue to develop. But at least we are scoring good points today.”
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2024 Bahrain Grand Prix
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