Scuderia Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur has revealed that the power unit Charles Leclerc used in the opening round of the 2023 Formula 1 championship was saved and is therefore still available to him as the season progresses.
Even before the first race of the year, at the Sakhir circuit, Charles Leclerc was already forced to mount new power unit components and therefore delve into his 2023 F1 allocation for a new energy store after the Maranello team noticed possible issues during Friday practice. Things went for the worse during the Bahrain Grand Prix, as the Monegasque driver was forced to retire from the Sakhir and then had to take a ten-place grid penalty for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix at the Jeddah Corniche circuit, as Ferrari had to mount a third energy store of the season.
However, Ferrari team principal Frederic Vassuer has confirmed the Maranello technicians managed to save the power unit from Bahrain and will use it at a later point of the season:
“We were quite confident about the outcome of the issue in Bahrain but we didn’t want to take any risk,” – the French managed explained when asked by Sky Sports F1 on this matter – “We’ll use the engine one a bit later into the season. But it was just a matter of having a clean weekend this weekend. So no concerns over the ones that are in there for this weekend. We are always concerned about everything but not especially about the engine.”
Following his discussion with the Ferrari boss, former F1 world champion and current Sky Sport F1 analyst Damon Hill pointed out that even after the first round if the season, Fred Vasseur was already dealing with pressure.
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“He’s got a massive reputation in the team, he’s got to understand and get his position in that team established and already, after only the first race, you can see the pressure has been applied to Ferrari,” Damon Hill explained in his analysis for Sky Sports F1 – “And there’s all sorts of gossip around a lot of headless chickens and stuff and he’s had to quash that. But here he is facing facts. He’s got a car that he hopes is going to be at least at the front of the pack if not snapping at the heels of the Red Bull.”
2016 F1 world champion Nico Rosberg also shared his thoughts on Ferrari’s situation and added that the French manager was doing his best to settle into life at Scuderia Ferrari, including by taking Italian lessons.
“He was my boss in Formula 2 so I know him very, very well. He’s really such a competent team leader and so I’m sure he’s going to fare well there. I spoke to him earlier. Two things, he’s taken the head of human resources from the Ferrari car division where he oversees the Formula 1 team as well and moved him into the office next to him. That’s the first change he made in order to learn about the team of people as quickly as possible. Because it’s so much about people management and so I think that’s a big step that he did, which is similar to Toto [Wolff] picking away the human resources leader from Red Bull, it’s such a key person. And he’s taking Italian lessons every morning and he said it’s such a head scratcher.” – Nico Rosberg concluded.
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