Ferrari ‘not fully confident’ of fix for fault which stopped both cars in Malaysia

2017 Malaysian Grand Prix

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Ferrari has confirmed Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen suffered identical failures on their power units during the Malaysian Grand prix weekend.

The team’s chief technical officer Mattia Binotto said the team has strengthened the parts which failed on the team’s cars at Sepang. The faults prevented Raikkonen from starting the race and stopped Vettel from setting a lap time during qualifying.

Raikkonen was unable to race in Sepang
However Binotto admitted the team “can never be fully confident of having solved the problems we’ve got.”

“The problems we had were completely unexpected,” said Binotto during today’s FIA press conference. “It’s a problem we didn’t experience both on the dyno and at a race track during the entire season.”

“There were some quality issues with the parts. We failed an inlet manifold on the engine from the compressor to the cylinder heads. And it happened twice because we had the same problem both Sebastian in qualifying and Kimi in the race.”

Binotto indicated the punishing weather conditions in Sepang may have contributed to the failures. “It’s something that we are analysing in parallel with reinforcing the components but something on which we need still to better understand,” he said.

Following the costly failures Ferrari chairman Sergio Marchionne indicated changes would be made at the team. However Binotto said these changes were already planned before last week’s race.

“What we are considering, something that is already planned, is to reinforce our quality department,” he said. “It’s as simple as that. So our quality department will be and is already reinforced, that is the organisation our chairman was meaning.”

“I think that to improve your performance you need to improve your car, your package, but as well you need to improve your organisation,” Binotto added.

2017 Malaysian Grand Prix

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    Keith Collantine
    Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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    9 comments on “Ferrari ‘not fully confident’ of fix for fault which stopped both cars in Malaysia”

    1. Same engine ;-) ;-)

      1. Generally that’s my thought, but it didn’t look like an engine failure, that said inlet manifold is embarrassing. I’m more doubtful of that gearbox, how is it still alive?

    2. I hope Ferrari did a good job glueing back on the FIA seals on vettels gearbox!! ;-)

    3. I have a feeling that for this race the following prediction will happen,

      an Epic battle between Vettel and Max, I want to see this so bad,

      Hamilton will be in 3rd battling Riccardo,

      Alonso will fight for 5th

      1. More likely HAM and VET fighting at the front. Alonso will do well to get near the top 10.

        1. The reason is I think is becuase Suzuka will be more about a battle of aeros rather than battle of power.

          Honestly unless Hamilton achieves a pole, I think he will have a hard time passing the Ferrari or Redbulls, it will be interesting to see how it goes.

    4. In the right weather conditions it is not impossible for Alonso to win… (he is still my favorite driver)

      1. Well, it has to rain and something has to happen to verstappen and hamilton, who not only have better cars but are also superior in the wet. Alonso is decent in the wet, so he might have a chance, but only then, and you need a full wet race, not just for a few laps.

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