Ferrari has confirmed the power unit that cost Charles Leclerc a likely first Formula 1 race victory in Bahrain last weekend can be used again at the upcoming Chinese Grand Prix.
Leclerc claimed his maiden pole position at Sakhir and fought back to re-claim the lead from Ferrari team-mate Sebastian Vettel, having dropped to third on the opening lap.
Leclerc held a comfortable advantage over Lewis Hamilton following the pit stop phase and looked set to take his maiden win.
But with 13 laps remaining he reported a loss of power and his SF90 was slowed by several seconds a lap, and he dropped to third place, behind Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas.
Ferrari initially suspected an MGU-H failure was behind the issue but post-race team boss Mattia Binotto clarified that a “mis-combustion” had led to a loss of one of the six cylinders in Leclerc’s power unit.
On Friday Ferrari confirmed that Leclerc will be able to use the same power unit in China, thus keeping the Monegasque youngster on his planned engine schedule for the campaign.
It also revealed that its technicians and engineers “traced the fault on the car to a short circuit within an injection system control unit.”
It stressed that “this type of problem had never been seen before on the component in question.”
Leclerc’s podium was nonetheless his first in Formula 1 and he sought to take the positives from the weekend post-race, with his conduct widely praised within the paddock.
Ferrari holds second place in the Constructors’ Championship, 39 points behind Mercedes.
