Ferrari pit stop accident: cause of Bahrain mishap clarified

T he good news first: Francesco Cigarini, the Ferrari mechanic , who broke a leg during a failed pit stop in Bahrain, is on the mend. After a successful operation in the hospital, the Italian was allowed to fly home again.

Ferrari system triggers traffic light

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An LED on the impact wrench shows whether the sensor detects that the tire change is complete. The signal is then sent to the pit lights.

The fans should still remember the pictures of the dramatic incident. Kimi Räikkönen rolled over the mechanic's lower leg when he changed tires for the second time. After a more detailed analysis, the question now seems to have been clarified how the pilot was able to get the command to drive off even though the rear left wheel had not yet been replaced.

“We have a fixed procedure for the pit stops run as safely as possible during the race ”, explained team principal Maurizio Arrivabene on the sidelines of the GP China. “In this case, three factors play a role: the human control, the mechanics and an electronic device.” According to the Italian, there was an error in the handling of the rear left tire change because the electronic device did not recognize the situation correctly and this triggered the green light.

Sensor sends wrong signal

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The impact wrenches are high-tech devices that are apparently error-prone.

What Arrivabene expressed in a somewhat categorized manner, In simple terms: the sensor on the impact wrench did not recognize that the tire change was not carried out correctly and therefore passed the release signal on to the traffic light. For most of the other teams, this signal is not triggered automatically, but has to be sent to the traffic light by the mechanic at the push of a button.

The error at Ferrari seems to have been triggered by turning the impact wrench in the wrong direction was set. When the mechanic started again after the unsuccessful first attempt to loosen the wheel, the traffic light suddenly turned green. According to Arrivabene, a system has now been installed that prevents the incident from happening again.