Charles Leclerc will not have Ferrari’s latest Leclerc Ferrari engine specification available at the Spanish Grand Prix, with the Scuderia choosing not to risk the upgraded power unit recovered from his Monza crash until it has been through a full set of X-ray checks.
Why the Leclerc Ferrari engine upgrade has been shelved
Ferrari introduced its second permitted round of power-unit modifications — the 067/6, known internally as ADUO2 — at Monza a week ago. Leclerc’s example survived his lap-two shunt at the exit of Parabolica, and external structural inspections found no cracks or breakages. But Maranello’s engineers want more thorough X-ray examinations before the unit races again, to rule out small areas of damage that surface checks would not reveal.
The regulations leave no middle ground. Teams are prohibited from running an engine that cannot be worked on across all of its homologated components, so a unit still under observation simply cannot be fitted. Leclerc will therefore use an older ADUO1 engine in Madrid, with the newer spec’s return now expected in first practice at Baku.
The timing is unhelpful rather than disastrous. Madrid sits 667 metres above sea level, an altitude close to that of the Red Bull Ring, and the larger turbo compressor that forms part of the ADUO2 package could have offered a useful gain in the thinner air. Set against that, the Madring is a brand-new circuit where mileage matters more than headline power: any reliability scare on Friday would have wrecked a setup programme that already has to reconcile very slow corners with long, fast straights. Our report on Ferrari’s ADUO2 upgrade and its remaining power deficit covers what the package was designed to claw back.
Leclerc fit, and quick, despite the Monza scare
The driver, at least, has emerged in better shape than his engine. The Monza accident was Leclerc’s third retirement of 2026 and left him with a brief vision problem in his right eye, alongside neck tightness that lingered into the Monday. Speaking in the Madring paddock, he played down the eyesight issue.
“Right after I got into the [medical] car, one eye was, I don’t know, maybe not working properly — but then it was fully fine after a few seconds, so I was not too worried,” he said. “I knew it was a big shunt, and obviously that’s never a good thing for the body, but straight away then I could see quite nicely.”
Friday backed that up. Leclerc was second in FP2 behind championship leader Kimi Antonelli, with Lewis Hamilton third, and on a pure sector-by-sector basis he had the raw pace to go quickest of all: stitched together, his best sectors came to a 1m33.478s, faster than anything actually set.
The bigger Ferrari problem is race pace
A single-lap flourish will not hide the underlying picture. On Friday’s long runs both Ferraris were around nine tenths of a second per lap adrift of Mercedes, who swept both sessions and have a habit of understating their hand on a Friday. Lewis Hamilton sits third in the drivers’ standings on 191 points, 76 behind Antonelli, with Leclerc fifth on 155 — numbers that explain why the questions in Madrid have turned to team orders rather than titles.
Qualifying for Formula 1’s first Spanish Grand Prix in the capital begins at 16:00 CEST (15:00 BST) on Saturday, with the race on Sunday 13 September. Technical detail via Motorsport.com.
