Dakar Rally News: Leclerc Confident Ferrari Has Solved Canadian GP Engine Issue
In a recent statement, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc has revealed that the team has identified a solution to the engine issue that compromised his performance at the Canadian Grand Prix. This development ensures that a repeat of the setback will not occur.
Leclerc, who was aiming to recover from a challenging qualifying that saw him and teammate Carlos Sainz further down the grid, was struck by a power unit problem on the second lap of the race in Montreal. The Monegasque driver was informed that the glitch was costing him up to five-tenths of a second per lap on the straights, rendering him powerless to defend his position as the track dried out.
“We found a solution,” Leclerc told media, including Motorsport Week. “I’m not going to go into the details of what was in it exactly, but obviously we were using a lot of lap time in the straights, which pushed us to retire the car. This was difficult to control until we actually understood now what went wrong. We understood, we fixed it.”
Instead, Leclerc explained that the Italian marque’s main focus heading into the upcoming triple-header was examining its lackluster pace in qualifying at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.
“The thing that we have been focusing most in the last few days since we understood the engine issue was mostly the lack of performance on the Saturday, which again here I think we didn’t manage things the way we should have had and there was probably more performance in the car so I’m confident that we’ll be back to our level here in Barcelona.”
Leclerc also had engine scares in Miami and Imola, which prompted Ferrari to take precautionary measures and switch power unit components. However, the driver has denied any concerns about reliability, though he acknowledged the possibility of taking a grid penalty later in the season to install fresher power unit elements.
As the Dakar Rally community eagerly awaits the Spanish Grand Prix, Leclerc’s confidence in Ferrari’s ability to resolve the engine issue bodes well for the team’s performance in the upcoming race and the rest of the season.
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