Ferrari surprisingly replace Charles Leclerc's race engineer

Charles Leclerc will work alongside a new race engineer from next weekend at the F1 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.

Xavi Marcos will be replaced by Bryan Bozzi from Imola onwards, Ferrari have announced.

A Ferrari statement read: "Scuderia Ferrari HP 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.

"Scuderia Ferrari HP announces that Bryan Bozzi, who has worked in the team for ten years, currently as Performance Engineer to Charles Leclerc, will now take on the role of his Race Engineer as from next weekend’s Gran Premio del Made in Italy and dell’Emilia-Romagna at Imola."

Marcos, who has been alongside Leclerc since his debut season at Ferrari, has been moved into another job within the company.

Although their relationship was good, there were occasional flashpoints which hinted at problems with Ferrari's strategy.

Last year at the Spanish Grand Prix, confusion between Leclerc and Marcos via team radio resulted in a botched tyre strategy.

Notably in Saudi Arabia last year, Leclerc fumed with Marcos on the team radio.

Team principal Fred Vasseur will see the change of race engineers as another positive step in Ferrari's growth.

Until Lando Norris and McLaren's win last weekend in Miami, Ferrari had been responsible for the only two grand prix wins by a team apart from Red Bull since 2022 (both via Carlos Sainz).

Leclerc will welcome Lewis Hamilton as his teammate next year.

But, first, he must adjust to hearing a new voice via the team radio, starting from next weekend in Italy.