Ferrari say an issue never before encountered by their mechanics was the cause of Charles Leclerc's loss of power at the Bahrain Grand Prix, which robbed him of a richly deserved victory. The cause of the issue has been much speculated on, but the team say it was down to a short circuit within an injection system control unit.

Leclerc was the star performer across the weekend in Sakhir, taking pole position on Saturday to become the second youngest pole-sitter in Formula 1 history – and Ferrari's youngest ever.

Having overcome a poor launch to regain first position at the expense of team-mate Sebastian Vettel – ignoring team orders to hold position in the process – Leclerc was cruising to his maiden race win in F1, until disaster struck.

Lacking top-line speed, Leclerc was powerless to see the Mercedes pair of Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas cruise past him, and only a safety-car finish prevented Max Verstappen from taking the final podium spot away from the 21-year-old.

It was thought at the time of the incident that an MGU-H failure was behind Leclerc's slow finish, raising fears of engine penalties further down the line this year.

However, team principal Mattia Binotto refuted those claims and suggested a cylinder failure was at fault – a suggestion refuted in some sections of Italian media.

The statement read: "Following the race, the Scuderia Ferrari Mission Winnow technicians and engineers traced the fault on the car to a short circuit within an injection system control unit.

"This type of problem had never been seen before on the component in question."