Ferrari is the dream of everyone, says Charles Leclerc's new race engineer as he reflects on his new role
Having taken on the role of race engineer for Charles Leclerc, Bryan Bozzi reflects on his new position and his close relationship with the six-time F1 race winner.
Ferrari announced a key change to Charles Leclerc' engineering team, confirming the departure of his previous race engineer Xavier Marcos. The Spaniard's position was taken on by Bryan Bozzi, who worked as his performance engineer previously.
Expanding on his background and dtudies, Bozzi added: "I am Italo-Danish by birth and I studied at the St George’s British International School in Rome, before studying Mechanical Engineering at Bath University. At the time I took part in a Formula Student programme aimed at giving various groups of students the opportunity to design and build a racing car.
"Then, universities from around the world raced against each other like real racing teams and it was while doing this that I realised I really liked racing and I tried to get a job as an intern at Ferrari, the team everyone wants to work for at some point or other. From then on, things went well and I’ve been part of Scuderia Ferrari HP for several years now.
"Representing this company and Italy at the highest level of motorsport is something I am very proud of, especially as I’ve been given the opportunity to work alongside a driver of the calibre of Charles.
Bozzi has been the performance engineer of Charles Leclerc in recent years. However, with Ferrari making various tweaks to the structure of the team, Leclerc's previous race engineer Xavier Marcos left Ferrari's F1 operation to move to another position within the Italian marque.
Speaking of his new role at the Scuderia, Bozzi said: "The Race Engineer is responsible for running the car he is given over the race weekend. That includes execution of the run plan for each free practice session and for fine tuning the car set-up.
"It’s the Race Engineer who speaks to the driver over the radio to pass on all information needed during the sessions. The Performance Engineer is responsible for optimising the various controls on the car, such as the balance on the brakes and the differential. By definition the role involves spending a lot of time analysing car balance and working to ensure the car behaves as expected from the simulations.
"The Driver Coach is focused on improving the driver’s actual performance. They analyse video and telemetry from all the cars in the field and suggest what lines the driver should take and any other ideas that might make them quicker.
"These guys, along with other engineers at the track and back in Maranello, try to optimise the car to extract the last few thousandths of a second of lap time which is often enough to make the difference in Formula 1 as it is now.
