Martin Brundle makes “jaw drop and eyes roll” comment about latest Ferrari “shocker”
Sky Sports pundit Martin Brundle didn’t mince his words when discussing the predicament Ferrari finds itself in after just one round of the new Formula 1 season
Martin Brundle provided a scathing assessment of Ferrari’s current situation, with engine reliability issues already throwing the pre-season plans into disarray.
Before the second race of the year, Charles Leclerc was given a starting penalty for exceeding the number of control electronics components allowed per driver and season.
This particular part of the engine was replaced prior to the Bahrain Grand Prix, while the replacement failed and contributed to the power unit problem that forced him to retire. Both are believed to be unrecoverable and that is why Leclerc is already in his third place of the season, suffering a 10-place penalty in Jeddah.
Leclerc is also on the second energy storage system of the season, while both Ferrari drivers also took a new combustion engine ahead of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. Carlos Sainz was fourth in Bahrain but suffered from severe tire damage which hampered his progress.
Looking at this picture, Brundle doesn’t seem to have much hope for Ferrari’s chances of creating anything special this season. “The reliability – Leclerc falls 10 places down the grid here, time for a jaw-drop and eye-roll,” said the Sky Sports F1 pundit.
“Already? It seems unbelievable that they blew two control units. There are obviously some issues that need to be addressed and reliability is everything. Teams, as you can imagine, have gotten a handle on something like this by now, so that’s it a shocker.”
Nonetheless, Brundle had at least one positive thing to say about the Italian team ahead of the Jeddah race weekend. He added: “I think the Ferrari will look better here than in Bahrain.”
The Italian media was more critical of Ferrari than any other, but Sainz snapped back at some of the criticism. He said: “I’m really very surprised at how some people at home tried to destabilize the team a little bit. Because some call it a crisis – we only did one race, it’s impossible to judge the performance in that race.
“We’re the first not to be happy with how that first race went and we’re the most worried about it. And we’re the hardest hit by it. And we’ll try as much as we can to improve it. ” So yeah I’m pretty calm and I see people at home who are engaged, focused and with a very clear purpose in mind and I include myself.