Ferrari team boss Mattia Binotto believes Charles Leclerc’s non-start at the Monaco Grand Prix may be unrelated to his Q3 accident.
Ferrari was forced to change a raft of parts overnight in the wake of Leclerc crashing out in the final stages of Q3 but gave his gearbox the all-clear, thus avoiding a potential grid penalty.
However a problem was detected on the SF21 as Leclerc made his way to the dummy grid and he returned to the garage for further checks.
Ferrari swiftly diagnosed a left driveshaft failure and Leclerc was not only unable to take up his pole position but was not even able to start the race.
“We need to fully understand what happened,” Binotto told Sky Sports.
“The failure is on the driveshaft into the hub on the left-hand side. So it’s not a gearbox problem we had.
“The gearbox had been inspected yesterday evening, it has been reviewed, and I think that the gearbox was OK for the race. What happened is on the opposite side compared to the accident. So it may be completely unrelated to the accident.
“But something which we need to carefully understand and analyse, and we have no answer right now.”
Binotto reiterated that Ferrari was not casual in its pre-race checks, insisting “There was no gamble on the gearbox. We are confident the gearbox would have been OK for the race.
“But again, what happened needs an explanation, that we do not have right now. As I said, we will need to carefully analyse.”
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