Did Ferrari push their power unit too far in Bahrain?
Charles Leclerc, the second youngest pole sitter ever, was in total control of the 2019 Bahrain GP. With 10 laps to go it all went wrong after reporting an engine issue, resulting in a loss of power and straight line speed. Immediately Leclerc could see his maiden win slipping away as Hamilton started gained over 6s per lap on him.
After a poor start, Leclerc dropped all the way back to 4th place by the fought back by the 6th lap to be back in the lead and ahead of his teammate and running with a Ferrari 1-2. Leclerc then proceeded to push ahead and create a comfortable gap between himself and Vettel. It was looking like it would be a fairy tale ending for Leclerc, only in his second race with Ferrari and his second year in Formula 1.
On lap 46 of 57 Leclerc radio’d his engineer to report that something was up with his power unit. After investigating Ferrari reported it was an issue with the MGU-H. The MGU-H effectively is the part that connects the turbo to the energy harvesting system attached to the rear brakes. Not only was Leclerc now down on power, because the system was no longer harvesting kinetic energy, but his rear brakes were now significantly compromised since they are highly reliant on the engine braking generated by the MGU-H to slow the car down into the corners.
Hamilton, who was almost 10 seconds down on Leclerc on lap 46, was now catching his by almost 6 seconds per lap. By lap 48 Hamilton waved apologetically to Leclerc as he sailed past. Bottas, who was 27 seconds behind Leclerc when Hamilton went by, was able to get past Leclerc on lap 55. Verstappen was getting ready to pounce when both Renault’s experienced power unit failures and brought out the safety car with 2 laps to go.
In the end Leclerc ended up on the podium, his first in Formula 1, by ending up in 3rd. What looked to be a convincing victory for Leclerc and Ferrari had turned into a bitter defeat. Ferrari will be heading back to Maranello with their tails between their legs looking for answers. Sky Sports pundit Martin Brundle suggested that Ferrari simply stressed the engine too much, which ended up costing them the victory, and that this may have been a test to see just how far they could push the power unit. Was this the case? Only time will tell.
Will Ferrari get it right next time out in Shanghai? With the next race being the 1000th Formula 1 race, Ferrari will be keen to come back with this sorted at a race traditionally dominated by Lewis Hamilton and show that they have what it takes in 2019.
