Charles Leclerc will take his first grid penalty for a power unit part change at the second round of the season in Saudi Arabia.
The Ferrari driver will use his second complete power unit of the year in Jeddah, and move onto his third set of control electronics, the annual limit for which is two. Switching to his third incurs an automatic 10-place grid penalty.
The season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix weekend did not go to plan for Leclerc, as he had to replace the energy store and control electronics prior to the race on Sunday. Despite that during the grand prix he suffered another technical failure which meant he had to retire.
It left Ferrari in a position where it was most likely needing to install another control electronic unit in the car for Jeddah if either of the first two could not be repaired for use again.
Ferrari made reliability improvements to their power units during the off-season after running their motors at lower power during 2022 to reduce the risk of failures following a spate of retirements. The engines are used by Alfa Romeo and Haas in addition to the factory Ferrari team.
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