Antonio Giovinazzi will have a grid penalty of at least 10 places for this weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Alfa Romeo has replaced the control electronics on the Ferrari power units of Giovinazzi and team mate Kimi Raikkonen. The team has fitted the new version of the hardware which was introduced in China on Ferrari and Haas’s cars, in response to Charles Leclerc’s failure during the Bahrain Grand Prix.The new Ferrari hardware was not fitted to the C38’s power units in China. Giovinazzi suffered a failure on his unit during qualifying, and had a replacement old-specification part fitted for the race.
He therefore will use his third different Control Electronics this weekend. Drivers are allowed a maximum of two per season, meaning Giovinazzi will incur a 10-place grid penalty.
The news is the latest setback for Giovinazzi, who has failed to score in all three races so far this year while Raikkonen has brought home points in each. Alfa Romeo team principal Frederic Vasseur said this week Giovinazzi has not been able to show his potential due to “technical issues” on his car.
Honda has also confirmed all four of its drivers at Red Bull and Toro Rosso will have new-specification power units for this weekend’s race.
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Jere (@jerejj)
25th April 2019, 12:58
So neither Honda nor Renault-powered drivers are going to get the first PU element allocation-related grid penalties this season. Who could’ve predicted that before the start of the season?
Phylyp (@phylyp)
25th April 2019, 13:00
@jerejj – LOL, yeah!
And with Ferrari-powered teams having started with a dodgy CE unit (which is capped at just two per season), I think we’ll see all 6 of them take a hit some time or the other.
Chaitanya
25th April 2019, 13:02
All other power unit makers finding it hard to keep with reliability of Merc PU and forced to make changes with barely 4th GP of season.
Tim
25th April 2019, 13:13
So, I got it right then.
nase
25th April 2019, 15:31
I think the wording is a bit misleading. In fact, Giovinazzi’s getting an upgrade to the Spec 2 version of the CE, whose main benefits are improved durability and life and better reliability, also possibly a slight improvement in performance. The reason for this update being, of course, a quality control issue.
Islander
25th April 2019, 21:05
So he’ll qualify on pole and start 11th, just outside the points.