Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc was on Wednesday hit with a 10-place grid penalty for this weekend’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. The sanction was meted out by Formula One’s rulers the FIA after Ferrari had been pressured to vary the facility unit twice in Leclerc’s automobile on the season-opening race in Bahrain. Ferrari then moved to make use of a 3rd energy unit for the race in Saudi Arabia, breaking the principles that solely allow two modifications in a whole season. Leclerc, who’s already 25 factors adrift of double world champion Max Verstappen’s Red Bull after he failed to complete in Bahrain, faces additional penalties if extra components must be modified on his automobile forward of Sunday’s race in Jeddah.

Ferrari’s new workforce principal Fred Vasseur defined what had gone fallacious for the scuderia in Bahrain.

“On Sunday, we had two different issues,” he informed Formula1.com.

“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 one thing that we by no means skilled previously. I hope now it is beneath management, however we’ve a deep evaluation on this.”

The former Alfa Romeo chief, who took over from Matteo Binotti after last year’s reliability-hit campaign, added: “Unfortunately, we’ll must take the penalty in Jeddah, as a result of we’ve solely a pool of two management items for the season.”

In Bahrain, Leclerc was running a comfortable third when he experienced a loss of power on lap 47 and retired, Verstappen going on to win from Sergio Perez for a Red Bull 1-2.

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