Charles Leclerc faces a grid penalty of at least 10-places for this weekend's Saudi Arabian Grand Prix following his issues in Bahrain.

In the hours ahead of the season opener, Ferrari replaced the Energy Store and Control Electronics on the Monegasque's car, only to see him retire from the race with an electrics-related issue.

"On Sunday, we had two different issues," confirmed Fred Vasseur today. "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," he admitted. "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."

In the wake of last year's Azerbaijan race the Maranello outfit subsequently opted to run its engine at a lower power is a bid not to compromise reliability. However, after focussing on such issues over the winter Vasseur is confident that the team will not have to reduce power again this year.

"Charles was with us after the tyre test day on Tuesday, was at the factory on Wednesday morning," said the Frenchman, in reaction to media claims that all is far from well within the team.

"We had a speech with the employees, where we were all together on stage.

"It's obvious Charles is motivated, we have done one race of 23," he added. "He's full push with the team, trying to get the best for everyone.

"The penalty is not good news, but it's not the end of the season. Let's see what happens in Jeddah, and what could be the outcome, even with the penalty, but don't imagine for half a second he could be demotivated. He's fully convinced, he's working with us, pushing the team, pushing everybody in a positive way. And nothing else."

It has since been claimed that some of the recent media reports regarding employees seeking to leave the team are down to a "rogue" team member who is leaking details, including lengths of contracts, to the media.

Then again, in the land of Machiavelli, what else would one expect?

Asked specifically about the rumours surrounding Laurent Mekies, he said: "Personally I have known him for 25 years, I trust him, we have a very good partnership and he will be one of the pillars of the future the company is counting on."

And asked if other key people within the team are in doubt he said: "I don't think so, but otherwise in every F1 team there are constantly people leaving and others arriving. I can add that we are a solid group that is looking to the future.

"The analysis of the weekend in Bahrain revealed a long list of things we need to improve," he admitted, "I hope that already in Jeddah we can have a first reaction.

"We also have to solve the driveability problem and try to make some progress," he added. When asked if this related to the power unit or set-up, he replied: "The engine. It was probably a bit difficult to drive in some conditions, and we have to figure out how to set it up perfectly. It's always a compromise between driveability and performance.

"It's a performance problem, not a concept problem," he insisted. "We struggled a bit to find the correct balance over the weekend, so it means we have room for improvement on that front.

"The most important thing is to stay focused on trying to get the best out of what we have at our disposal, then with regard to the updates, the hope is that they will improve the competitiveness of the package."

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by didaho, 16/03/2023 8:15

"From elsewhere (can't recall where now) I gathered the ECU's were fried by a faulty wiring loom."

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2. Posted by dejan, 16/03/2023 5:29

"Fully agree with this sentiment. On top of that all teams use the exact same ECU manufactured by a McLaren subsidiary so there is no performance benefit to changing to a new unit mid-season.

https://www.mclaren.com/group/case-studies/case-study-electronic-control-units/"

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3. Posted by kenji, 16/03/2023 0:51

"@ Endre...I am something of an Ferrari fan and I support your views. What I think should happen is that the penalty system needs drastic review. The ECU, AFAIK, is a unit supplied by a third party and therefore any penalty issued against the team is unjustified. To penalise the driver firstly is unfair and a gross error and secondly the team should not carry the can for being supplied a substandard part! To suffer this 'indignation, so early in the series is a bitter blow."

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4. Posted by Endre, 15/03/2023 18:34

"I am far from being a Ferrari fan but this sucks. The ECU should not be a limited component, electronics can always fail randomly. There way too much over regulation in F1 these days."

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Vasseur confirms penalty for Leclerc

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