Mattia Binotto, Albert Park, 2019

Ferrari still unsure over rim failure which caused Vettel’s test crash

2019 Australian Grand Prix

Posted on

| Written by

Ferrari still doesn’t fully understand the nature of the wheel rim failure which caused Sebastian Vettel to crash during pre-season testing.

Vettel lost control of his car at turn three during the sixth day of testing after a failure of his left-front wheel rim. His subsequent impact with the barrier impaired Ferrari’s ability to investigate the cause of the problem.

The team believe a piece of debris caused the rim to fail. Video of the crash appears to show the rim failing mid-corner, causing the car to drop and skid straight on.

Team principal Mattia Binotto said the team has taken several steps to prevent a repeat but is still trying to understand the exact nature of the fault.

“Certainly we investigate, I think we still do not have a full picture, a full understanding or certainty on what happened,” said Binotto during today’s FIA press conference.

“But we put a lot of actions in place and we are pretty sure that the with actions we put in place somehow we are covered, we are safe for the next running.

“We are still doing some checks by running, making sure we have the full picture of what may have happened. But let me say that we fixed it.”

Ferrari had no obvious problems in today’s first practice session, in which Vettel set the second-fastest time ahead of team mate Charles Leclerc.

Don't miss anything new from RaceFans

Follow RaceFans on social media:

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and go ad-free

2019 F1 season

Browse all 2019 F1 season articles

Author information

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...

Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

One comment on “Ferrari still unsure over rim failure which caused Vettel’s test crash”

  1. In the article thumbnail those glasses looked drawn on, I thought it was April 1st already or something.

Comments are closed.