According to sports director Laurent Mekies, Ferrari emerged “stronger” from the experience of losing a strong chance of winning the Monaco Grand Prix two weeks ago.
Charles Leclerc secured pole position for the race despite a crash at the end of qualifying. The team believed they had successfully repaired their car for him to race, only to develop a bug on their pre-race scouting lap. Ferrari had to shut down its car.
The team then admitted they missed a hidden, damaged section on the left side of the car, opposite where Leclerc hit the guardrail. Mekies said the team learned the lesson in improving its inspection process for future races.
“I think we came out stronger as a team because we learned that the process we used there to judge whether the car was okay should have been better,” he said.
“We don’t take that lightly – we didn’t take it lightly in Monaco. It is the extent of the possible consequences of the accident that we have not taken far enough. “
Mekies said the experience contained lessons for more than just future repair work.
“These are our lessons for us, so we improve in every single area. It is no different in an accident. This is how we improve performance, how we improve operations, how we improve reliability. It makes sure we add that to our structured approach.
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“From all these steps – it can be a bad experience like the one in Monaco or a good experience if we are over-performing somewhere – you slowly build a better team and a stronger team. And that’s what we concentrate fully on. “
Ferrari hoped not to have to replace Leclerc’s gearbox when repairing his car, as doing so would result in an automatic start penalty. They didn’t change it and since the part that failed was outside, they could have kept using the gearbox in Azerbaijan. However, since Leclerc did not finish the previous race, he is entitled to take a new gearbox this weekend without penalty and Ferrari took advantage of the opportunity.
Leclerc said he thinks the team checked the car as thoroughly as possible after its accident.
“I followed everything because I was obviously very worried after the crash,” he said. “And they checked everything that was possible before Sunday, which is pretty tricky, the times are short.
“You turned on the engine, everything seemed to be perfectly fine. So, like the team, I was pretty confident that I was on track and that everything would be fine.
“I did the first sector and everything felt good. But then just before the tunnel, if I remember well, the rear left hub broke. I immediately understood that it was going to be quite difficult to get started, and we confirmed that in the pits. “
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Azerbaijan Grand Prix 2021
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