Ferrari Forced To Change Floor On Leclerc's Car After Driving Over Loose Drain Cover

Ferrari had to change the floor on the SF-24 of Charles Leclerc during the morning session of the second day of pre-season testing in Bahrain.

Charles Leclerc already sat in the car of his SF-24 during the morning session on Wednesday. He did the entire session without any major issues and set the second-fastest lap after Max Verstappen.

The Monegasque driver jumped behind the steering wheel of his Ferrari during the morning session once again today (Thursday, 22nd) to continue with his testing procedures.

He started off pretty well as he set the fastest lap of the session, but then, his progress was interrupted as he ran over a loose drain cover and triggered the red flag.

It is understood that the Ferrari driver first dislodged the drain cover, which was then run over by Lewis Hamilton, and then in the following lap, Leclerc ran over it once again, this time damaging his floor.

The session came to an early end after concluding that the drain cover on the curb ahead of turn number 11 needed to be fixed.

Drivers and teams then essentially lost one hour of testing, but they got it back as the afternoon session was extended by the one hour they were missing.

Interestingly, Carlos Sainz said he was walking around the track and was right next to the turn 11 when the incident happened.

The Spaniard told Formula 1 he saw the drain cover go loose live and wanted to warn the stewards to yellow-flag the session, but his teammate ran over it before he could.

Leclerc got his car back to the pits, and the curtains were immediately put up to hide what was happening in Ferrari's garage as the team examined Leclerc's floor.

The Prancing Horse later shared a statement that said the floor on the 26-year-old's car was damaged and needed to be replaced before the afternoon session.