Ferrari end pre-season testing early

Matthew Scott Friday 1 March 2019 16:33

Ferrari called a premature halt to their pre-season testing programme more than 90 minutes before the scheduled end of running on Friday after the SF90 suffered an electrical failure while Sebastian Vettel was driving it in the afternoon session, deemed too complex to fix in time.

Vettel's car came to a halt and had to be stopped from rolling down a hill after red flags were brought out.

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The SF90 was delivered back to Ferrari, who soon after confirmed that the fix would take them beyond the 18:00 local cut-off time.

#Seb5 car stopped due to an electrical issue, which would take too long to repair. That's it for today. Winter #F1Testing wrapped up. #SF90 #essereFerrari pic.twitter.com/nGuTmbwNZE — Scuderia Ferrari (@ScuderiaFerrari) March 1, 2019

Ferrari were not the only team to run into reliability issues on the final day of testing, with Max Verstappen also losing time in the Red Bull due to a gearbox problem.

None of the big three teams have had things run absolutely smoothly throughout pre-season.

Mercedes lost time due to an oil leak earlier this week, while both Red Bull and Ferrari have been put to work rebuilding their cars after crashes.

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Pierre Gasly twice bent the RB15, crashing in each week of pre-season on his first and final runs in the car.

Vettel also damaged the Ferrari on day two of the second test, wiping out much of the Scuderia's running on that day.

Ferrari put the incident down to a wheel rim being damaged by debris as Vettel made his way around the Circuit de Catalunya.

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