Charles Leclerc will take his third grid penalty of the season this weekend as Ferrari have fitted more new power unit components to his car.
Alpine driver Fernando Alonso has also had a further unauthorised engine change, earning a grid penalty for the United States Grand Prix.The Ferrari driver had already used five power units going into this weekend. Drivers are limited to a maximum of three per season before they begin to incur penalties. However Leclerc suffered failures in Spain and Azerbaijan which have forced him to use additional parts.
After final practice began at the Circuit of the Americas the FIA confirmed Ferrari have fitted a new engine and turbocharger to Leclerc’s car. He will therefore take a 10-place grid drop.
Alonso has only taken a new engine, and will have a five-place grid penalty. The pair join Sergio Perez and Zhou Guanyu, who have already collected five-place grid penalties for further exceeding their allocations of engines this weekend.
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2022 United States Grand Prix
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Jere (@jerejj)
22nd October 2022, 21:08
Unsurprising
Raymond Pang
22nd October 2022, 21:11
I wonder if we’ll ever have a race where every car takes a penalty.
BasCB (@bascb)
22nd October 2022, 21:17
I am sure there would be someone in that case NOT making any changes, just to be able to claim pole Raymond!
MichaelN
22nd October 2022, 22:29
So now Leclerc had engine failure in Spain and Azerbaijan, and penalties in Canada, Belgium, and Texas. That’s 5 out of 19 races where Ferrari’s lack of reliability is costing him places and points. I get the part where teams maximize performance because they’re still allowed to make reliability changes to their engines, but this number of affected races is way too high for a serious title challenge. Hopefully Ferrari can do better in the 2023 season.