Vettel confident Ferrari have solved Russia engine problem

At one stage, victory looked to be on the cards for Sebastian Vettel in Russia but he left Sochi without a single point after parking his Ferrari on track when the team detected an issue. The good news, though, is that Ferrari have “got to the bottom of it”…

Ferrari’s Russian GP unravelled in a single lap, as they were forced to tell Vettel to stop out on track, which subsequently caused a Virtual Safety Car that allowed Lewis Hamilton to get a free pit stop and snatch the lead from Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.

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The issue was previously thought to be an MGU-K issue, but the Prancing Horse took the class-leading power unit back to Maranello to investigate and found that “excessive temperatures on the power electronic unit” triggered the error.

Speaking in the Suzuka paddock on Thursday, ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix, Vettel – who has currently used up his allowance of engine components – was hopeful the problem will not trigger any component changes that lead to grid penalties in the remaining five races of the season.

“Obviously it wasn’t great because we had to stop,” he said. “I think we got to the bottom of it. There’s no concern for the next five races, in terms of the mileage we have to cover for all these events. It was a combination of things which led to something failing.”