28/02/2019
NEWS STORY
Following its investigation, Ferrari claims that a "rim issue" was the cause of Sebastian Vettel's crash during testing on Wednesday morning.
The German crashed just over two hours into the session, shortly after posting what was to be the third best time of the day.
As he began a fresh hot lap, the Ferrari went off spearing into the barriers.
"I was going into Turn 3 and I had a feeling there was an issue with the front left corner of the car," said the German, who, following the incident, was taken to the circuit's medical centre as a precaution, "and from then on, there was nothing I could do to avoid the impact.
"The good thing is I am totally fine and, by the end of the day, thanks to a great job from the mechanics, we even managed to get the car back on track."
Indeed, the car was repaired in time for teammate Charles Leclerc to complete one install lap in the minutes before the end of the session, the Monegasque having lost track time on Tuesday morning also.
As Ferrari began its investigation into the cause of the accident, its cause wasn't helped by the significant damage incurred.
This morning, as Leclerc resumed the Scuderia's programme, Ferrari revealed that "after thorough checks we found that Seb's off yesterday was due to a (wheel) rim issue", the Italian team confirming that the left-front rim was "damaged a few seconds before by an impact with a foreign object".