Ferrari appoints new race engineer for Leclerc with immediate effect

Ferrari have announced that Charles Leclerc will work with a new race engineer from next weekend's Imola F1 round with his former engineer Xavier Marcos set to continue outside the team's F1 department.

Marcos Padros started his career in motorsport as a race engineer for the BNC Racing Team. He got his first taste of Formula One while working for the fledging HRT team as performance engineer from 2010–2012. After the team folded he joined Williams Racing as a performance engineer for Felipe Massa.

Seeking a new challenge, Marcos Padros decided to move to the United States to become chief race engineer for the NASCAR team Richard Childress Racing in 2015. The Spaniard then returned to Formula One with Scuderia Ferrari, first as a factory based race engineer for 2018 and then became the race engineer for Charles Leclerc when he joined the team in 2019, and he has remained with the five-time F1 race winner ever since.

Ferrari has now announced that Marcos will leave its F1 department and will take part in other important company programmes instead. Leclerc will be supported by Bryan Bozzi, who has worked in the team for ten years, currently as Performance Engineer to the Monegasque.

Ferrari's statement read: “Scuderia Ferrari HP communicates that Bryan Bozzi, ten years in the team, currently Performance Engineer for Charles Leclerc, will take on the role of Race Engineer starting from the Made in Italy and Emilia Grand Prix next weekend – Romagna to Imola.

Expanding on Ferrari's decision, Leclerc commented on social media: "Grazie mille di tutto Xavi. 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. Thank you for everything and good luck for your new adventures in the future."