Charles Leclerc is set to endure more pain this weekend after he will be forced to take a third Control Electronics Unit in only the second race of the season, he will take a 10-place grid penalty for the component.
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Drivers are permitted two ECU’s for use throughout the whole season, any further components bring hefty grid penalties with them.
Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur said: “Unfortunately, we’ll have to take the penalty in Jeddah, because we only have a pool of two control units for the season.”
Leclerc’s first ECU was swapped out of his car on the morning of the Bahrain Grand Prix after the Ferrari team spotted something sinister in the data, the second unit was put in for the race but didn’t last long before it forced him into an early retirement.
“There were two problems, one on Sunday morning when we did the fire up, and one in the race, unfortunately.”
“Now I hope everything is under control. We have investigated the problem thoroughly and will pay for the trouble with a penalty in Jeddah.”
The penalty will see Leclerc fighting in the mid-pack as the lights go out, but the possibility of further penalties is not out of the question if the team decide to replace other parts simultaneously.
Power unit struggles are no stranger to the Ferrari team, with the team being forced to run their engines at lower power to reduce the risk of failures and grid penalites in 2022 following Baku. This pushed the team into developing their engines over the winter to increase durability to allow them to unlock the performance in the car.
Charles’ DNF in Bahrain is a bitter sight to see after so much hard work has been put into durability, and a frustrating start to the season for the Monegasque driver.
Leclerc is going into this weekends Saudi Arabian Grand Prix 19th in the championship and 25 points behind title-rival Max Verstappen after Red Bull showed their utter dominance over the field in Bahrain. Verstappen was 38 seconds clear of 3rd place Fernando Alonso, with a gap of 11 seconds to his teammate in 2nd.
“The penalty is not good news, but it’s not the end of the season”, Vasseur added, “Let’s see what happens in Jeddah.”
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