Charles Leclerc vulnerable to further penalties amid unsalvageable F1 Engine Control Units

Charles Leclerc vulnerable to further penalties amid unsalvageable F1 Engine Control Units. Further grid penalties loom as Charles claims ECUs are unsalvageable.

Bahrain Engine Control Units both damaged
“I don’t think [the two Engine Control Units] are reusable. We don’t have definitive confirmation yet, but I don’t think so.” These comments, made at the Jeddah Cornice Circuit by Scuderia Ferrari Monegasque driver Charles Leclerc in front of the Sky Sports F1 microphones, mean that the Ferrari #16 could face more grid penalties as the season progresses.

A difficult situation to accept for the Maranello team’s fans and especially for Charles Leclerc himself, who would have hoped to avoid similar reliability problems after the ones encountered during the previous Formula One campaign. The situation of the SF-23 #16 is known: in Sakhir, Ferrari replaced a first control unit as a precaution measure before the start of the race and then during the Grand Prix the second unit broke, causing Charles Leclerc to retire. A maximum of two of these components can be used in a Formula 1 season, so the Maranello team found itself forced to introduce a third one already for the second race weekend, automatically triggering the ten place grid penalty for Sunday’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

More penalties on the horizon
Given that in a season of 23 GPs it was expected that each driver competed for approximately half of the season with the same Engine Control Unit, it seems almost impossible to think that Charles Leclerc could do 22 races with the component, without ever changing it. Therefore, to avoid having to incur other penalties during the year, it would be essential for the Maranello team to be able to recover at least one of the two control units removed in Sakhir. However, the pessimism shown by Charles Leclerc himself in this regard leaves little room for hope. And past experience is also not encouraging for the Italian side: last year as many as 12 out of 20 drivers over the course of the season had in fact exceeded the two sets of electronic control units.

Jeddah less demanding on tyres
“Our weak point in Bahrain was clearly the race pace in general and the tire degradation – concluded Charles Leclerc, looking at the difficult comeback that awaits him on Sunday – we worked hard on this aspect and I’m sure we will one step ahead of Bahrain. Here the problem of tire degradation is not as serious as in Bahrain. That should help us.” – the Monegasque concluded.