Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc has been hit with a 10-place grid penalty ahead of this weekend’s Formula 1 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
The Monegasque suffered engine failure at the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix a fortnight ago and Ferrari have been forced to fit a fresh control electronics unit onto his car.
Those changes have automatically triggered an automatic 10-place grid drop for Leclerc in Sunday’s race in Jeddah, which potentially puts him on the back foot for the weekend except the car shows better performance with the new components.
Each F1 driver is permitted to use only two energy stores for the entire season and Leclerc had already used up half of his allocation when Ferrari opted to replace power unit components ahead of the Bahrain Grand Prix which the 25-year old retired from in third place due to an engine issue.
BREAKING: Charles Leclerc to receive a grid penalty at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix#SaudiArabianGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/mYvk0RMPHE
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Reliability was one of the major priorities new team principal Fred Vasseur hoped to fix over the winter but the problems of 2022 still seem to plague the Italian automobile giant.
“There were two issues, one on the Sunday morning when we did the fire-up and one in the race,” Vasseur said.
“Unfortunately, it was two times the control electronics box and it’s something that we never experienced in the past.
“I hope that now we have it under control. We have a deep analysis on this. But unfortunately, we will have to take the penalty in Jeddah because we only have a pool of two control electronics for the season.”
Leclerc trails Red Bull’s Max Verstappen by 25 points after his DNF in Bahrain and has a mountain to climb if he has any hopes to win the 2023 world championship.
