F1 News
Cooling problem for Ferrari and Mercedes again? The drivers react!
- Ludo van Denderen
The Bahrain Grand Prix wasn't hot yet Ferrari and Mercedes had problems keeping their cars cool during the Grand Prix. Mercedes, for instance, had opted for an aggressive cooling set-up, one that was a little too aggressive. Charles Leclerc's Ferrari also had cooling concerns.
In the coming days, Saudi Arabia will be warmer than Bahrain. Daytime temperatures will be 30 to 31 degrees on the days when F1 is in action this weekend. The meaningful sessions are complete in the evening, so it will have cooled down slightly. However, it is still much warmer than in Bahrain, where temperatures did not exceed 22 degrees during the day.
Why Leclerc and Russell are not concerned
Yet Charles Leclerc does not fear a repeat of the problems from Bahrain. "On my side it wasn't down to the overheating whatsoever. It was just an issue that we've never had before, and that was obviously very costly in terms of times, especially in the first half of the race where it was extremely difficult to drive, but I don’t expect it to happen again this weekend," Leclerc believes.
At Mercedes, then, there were also cooling problems in Bahrain. George Russell expects those to be a thing of the past. "Similar to Charles it was definitely a bit of an odd one for us, though we're confident we're on top of it and won't face the same issue this weekend," said Mercedes' Briton.