Cross and delight for Ferrari at the close of Friday free practice for the British GP. The men in red cannot totally smile at the promising result of Carlos Sainz alongside Verstappen in FP2 who have to deal with the technical problems on Charles Leclerc’s SF-23. In fact, an electrical problem on the number 16 car forced the Monegasque to watch the entire session from the Silverstone pits and the Prancing Horse to get feedback on the race pace and the new specifications with only one car.
Start of fire on SF-23
British GP
Sainz very close to Verstappen in free 2, but Leclerc remains stationary
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Just before free practice 2 started, something was wrong with Leclerc’s Ferrari during the ignition phase. The mechanics in red are forced to put the car on stands and disassemble it. The Maranello team announced during the session that they had to investigate the nature of an electrical problem that caused a fire to break out. The operations focus all the time on the wiring in the area between the engine attachment and the chassis, but the bottom is also disassembled, as reported by Formula Passion. It becomes too late to put the Monegasque’s SF-23 back in condition to do a few laps, as a result the driver doesn’t even get on the red, returning to the paddock about a quarter of an hour before the countdown expires.
Compromised Silverstone weekend?
The real origins of the problem that prevented Leclerc from lapping for the entire second free practice session are not yet known. Despite this, cautious optimism transpires inside the Ferrari garage – also considering the second place of his teammate, a sign of a performing SF-23 on the English circuit – and Charles will in all probability return to the track on Saturday for free practice 3 The driver himself confirmed to the microphones of the Circus that this electrical problem led to the disassembly of almost the entire car, but it will not affect performance nor will it lead to a penalty. A simple inconvenience? Not really, because because of this unexpected event, the Monegasque wasted precious time to test the innovations brought to Silverstone, get feedback on race pace and perfect the car’s set-up. It is true that there are still 60 minutes left before the British GP gets underway with qualifying, however according to the weather forecast it should rain in the morning. And so the little trouble threatens to complicate the whole weekend.
Ferrari mechanics at work on Charles Leclerc’s SF-23, stopped in the pits during free practice for the British GP
Credit Foto Getty Images
Leclerc: “We will do our best to recover”
Thus the Monegasque to the Ferrari microphones: “The sensations in the car with low fuel were good, while we still have some work to do to improve our race pace. We hope to make progress tomorrow even if the weather conditions could be very different starting today and there could be rain. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to lap in the second session and this prevented me from working ahead of Sunday. Tomorrow, weather permitting, we’ll do our best with the time we have to prepare for both the race and qualifying.” .
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