Ferrari on verge of penalties after China change

Chinese GP

Ferrari on verge of penalties after China change

Haas are also affected.

Matthew Scott

Friday 12 April 2019 07:08

Both Ferrari and Haas will spend the remainder of the 2019 walking a tightrope after new Control Electronics were fitted to their cars, in response to the issue which denied Charles Leclerc a maiden grand prix victory in Bahrain a fortnight ago.

Leclerc suffered a power outage 15 laps from the end of a race which he had dominated, an issue Ferrari eventually discovered was caused by a short circuit in an injection system control unit.

According to Ferrari, the issue "had never been seen before on the component in question".

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It has prompted the Scuderia to swap the electronics on its works cars and those of customer team Haas, although Alfa Romeo will not take new parts in China this weekend.

With just two Control Electronics permitted to be used across the season, Leclerc, Sebastian Vettel, Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean will incur a grid penalty if another change is needed this year.

Renault have also brought new parts to Shanghai, fitting their works drivers and McLaren's Lando Norris with a new MGU-K each.

Daniel Ricciardo and Nico Hulkenberg retired within moments of each other in Bahrain, which was traced back to the kinetic energy generator.

Carlos Sainz Jr has not made the change in China as he was previously fitted with the new part in Bahrain, having retired with another MGU-K failure in Australia.

Renault team principal Cyril Abiteboul said of the Bahrain double DNF: "It was a pure coincidence, but clearly an indication that we needed to get it sorted. So the MGU-K is sorted for this weekend.

"Having said that, we have had a number of issues unrelated to the MGU-K since the season started, the qualifying in Melbourne we had a problem, the qualifying in Bahrain we had a problem, and it's important that we now put that behind and get things in order."