Ferrari has announced that Charles Leclerc's race engineer has been replaced ahead of the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.
Charles Leclerc will be without long-time Imola race engineer Xavier Marcos Padros, with the Scuderia assigning the Spaniard to a new project within the company.
Ferrari appoints Charles Leclerc as new race engineer
Ferrari has announced that Marcos will be replaced by Brian Bozzi.
Bozzi, currently Leclerc's performance engineer, will take on the role of Leclerc's race engineer from the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix in Imola.
Ferrari confirmed the personnel changes on Leclerc's side of the garage in a short statement posted on social media.
Scuderia Ferrari's website has revealed that Brian Bozzi, who has been with the team for 10 years and currently works as performance engineer for Charles Leclerc, will take part in next weekend's Gran Premio del Made in Italy and Delle Miglia. Ferrari also confirmed the fate of Xavi Marcos, with a statement saying: “Romagna, Imola.''
“From Monday 13th May, Xavi Marcos will apply the valuable experience he gained as a race engineer for a Formula 1 team to the development of other important company programs.”
Marcos Podlas was Leclerc's race engineer throughout Monaco's time with Ferrari, and worked in NASCAR from 2015 to 2018, before which he was Felipe Massa's race engineer at Williams. .
The Spaniard oversaw all five of Leclerc's Grand Prix wins and became something of a celebrity himself with his infamous radio message telling drivers: “Checking…”
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Who is Brian Bozzi?
Leclerc's new race engineer Brian Bozzi started his career with Ferrari in 2012. Bozzi, who studied mechanical engineering in the UK, started working at Ferrari as a wind tunnel research and development engineer and became an engineer in his group for aviation trucks at the end of 2014.
He moved into race engineering at the end of 2018, and in 2019 he joined Marcos Padros in Leclerc's garage. Leclerc's new role as a race engineer is his first experience working as a driver's right-hand man.
Race engineers play a key role in developing driver talent and are the voice on the radio who can motivate, explain and encourage. A prime example is the long-time race engineers who oversee some of the most successful world champions on the grid. For example, Giampiero Lambiase, who has no problem matching Max Verstappen on team radio, or the friendship between Pete Bonnington and Lewis Hamilton.
Leclerc is not the only driver currently getting used to working with a new race engineer, as Valtteri Bottas was assigned a new one last week. He has worked alongside Alex Zhang since joining Sauber at the start of 2022 and appears in Miami as the Hinwil-based team begins changes to its staff ahead of Audi's arrival. Began working with Stephen Petrick.
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