Leclerc hit with Saudi Arabian GP grid penalty

Ewan Gale
Wednesday 15 March 2023 14:11 - Updated: 14:53

Charles Leclerc will take a 10-place grid penalty for the Saudi Arabia Grand Prix on Sunday.

The Monégasque endured a nightmare start to the season when retiring from third in the closing stages of the Bahrain Grand Prix.

After the power unit failure, Ferrari has been forced to fit another Control Electronics unit on Leclerc's engine, which, after the component was already changed between qualifying and the race in Bahrain, means he will be using his third of the season already.

With only two CEs allocated to drivers for an entire season, the switch has triggered a penalty.

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The switch also brings further penalties for CE changes into question later in the campaign.

Confirming the grid drop speaking to media on Wednesday, as quoted by F1.com, team principal Fred Vasseur said: "On Sunday, we had two different issues.

“The first one was on the Sunday morning, when we did the fire up, and the second one was in the race. Unfortunately, it was two times the control unit, the ECU.

“It’s something that we never experienced in the past. I hope now it’s under control, but we have a deep analysis on this.

"Unfortunately, we’ll have to take the penalty in Jeddah, because we have only a pool of two control units for the season.”