Charles Leclerc will have a new race engineer for the first time in his Ferrari career from next week’s Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix.
Ferrari have announced Xavier ‘Xavi’ Marcos Padros will move from his race engineer position to another role within Ferrari.Marcos Padros has been Leclerc’s race engineer ever since the driver joined Ferrari for his second season in Formula 1 in 2019.
Ferrari announced in a statement that Marcos Padros will move from his position as Leclerc’s race engineer with immediate effect.
“Ferrari announces that, as of Monday 13 May, Xavi Marcos will bring his valuable experience gained as a race engineer with the Formula 1 team to the development of other important company programmes,” the team said.
Ferrari subsequently confirmed Leclerc’s performance engineer, Bryan Bozzi, will take over as his race engineer from the Imola round, meaning the driver will have a new voice in his ear over team radio for the first time as a Ferrari driver.
Leclerc thanked his outgoing engineer in a post on social media. “So many years working together, my first pole, my first win as well as my first year in Ferrari was alongside you and you always got the better out of me by pushing so hard no matter the situation we were in,” he wrote. “Thank you for everything and good luck for your new adventures in the future.”
All of Leclerc’s five grand prix victories, 23 pole positions and 33 podium finishes in his F1 career have been achieved at Ferrari alongside Marcos Padros. The pair worked together for the final time in last weekend’s Miami Grand Prix, where Leclerc finished on the podium in third place.
They have experienced some frustrations during their time together, notably during the 2022 season, where Leclerc lost his early lead in the championship through a combination of unreliability and errors including tactical mistakes. Leclerc was especially infuriated by confusion over a pit stop during that year’s Monaco Grand Prix, his home race, which cost him the lead and led to him finishing outside of the top three.
Leclerc currently sits third in the drivers’ championship on 98 points after six rounds, 34 behind championship leader Max Verstappen.
Leclerc and Marcos Padros’ final radio exchange in Miami
| Chequered flag | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Mode slow, mode slow and charge button off. Reminder, pick up. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Leclerc | Copy. A shame. We were unlucky with the virtual and after the Safety Car. I think we did a good job, anyway. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Marcos Padros | Yeah, I agree. Good job. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Leclerc | I don’t think there was the amount of water that we put in the car, because I had no water from the formation lap onwards. I think there was a problem with that. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Marcos Padros | Copy that. We will check it. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Leclerc | And congrats to Lando for his first win. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Marcos Padros | And it will be to the grid. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Leclerc | Yeah, to the grid. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Marcos Padros | Good job and good weekend overall. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Leclerc | Thank you. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Ekynox
9th May 2024, 22:07
So what will he do, Question?
Sandwhichands
9th May 2024, 22:44
Checking printer ink cartridges
MacLeod (@macleod)
10th May 2024, 7:39
You both watch minidrivers & Loli too much ;)
John Beak (@johnbeak)
9th May 2024, 23:11
He fully deserves recognition for his strategic insights; I’m glad Ferrari managed to find a new position on the pit wall for Carlos- oh wait, I misread the new race engineer’s name.
MichaelN
9th May 2024, 23:38
An overdue change. The frequent exasperated outbursts by Leclerc, the slow and meme-worthy responses from the pitwall, the seeming myopic view on Leclerc rather than the race as a whole have been an ongoing problem. I was surprised that Vasseur didn’t make changes here last year.
Hopefully Bryan Bozzi will be able to take it to the next level.
AlexS
10th May 2024, 1:03
It should have been already in 2022.
Renee (@renee)
10th May 2024, 1:29
Was he the slow, monotone guy, whose 70% of English language was made up by “We are checking”?
If so, then good riddance. He might be a good person and brilliant at something else, but in no way fit to be a race engineer who has to be quick on his feet and grasp several scenarios at once. He just seemed so overwhelmed.
Kenny
10th May 2024, 15:45
First Binotti, now Padros. He seems like a entitled, petulant child – often blaming others for his occasional ho-hum performances.
Recently said he’d like to see ALO retire and give a youngster a chance. I wonder if that applies to his soon to be “elder” teammate. Should be motivation for HAM.
It will be interesting to see if his performs better with this change – he is running out of excuses.
Might want to work on keeping the car between the lines for starters. HAM will be pressuring him next year. I can’t wait.
wsrgo (@wsrgo)
10th May 2024, 19:45
What the heck…
RBAlonso (@rbalonso)
10th May 2024, 16:50
Xavi obviously has some shortcomings in a race environment but you don’t get to become a race engineer at Ferrari without a serious skillset. I assume that the peripheral soft skills like articulating set up and stint management analysis are his strong points.
However it’s been clear for about 18 months that this was the destined outcome. I’ve always believed that the main difference between Max and Charles is that Max is much more effective at explaining the vehicle dynamics and that Charles just drives what he is given. That’s why I think Carlos, who clearly works hard out of the car, has fewer off days where his pace is unexplainable like Spain or Zandvoort last year. When Charles has a car that just works, he’s clearly unbelievable as shown in 2022.
I’m sure this move will have clear in race benefits for Charles and Ferrari but I suspect there will be other less obvious drawbacks.