The role of a Race Engineer in F1 is so much more crucial than any of us can imagine. The Engineer is the only point of contact for the drivers when they’re out driving the car at 200+ miles per hour. And over the years, we’ve seen some very special relationships building between the drivers and their race engineers. Take the example of Max Verstappen and Gianpiero Lambiase, who talk like they’re buddies from childhood. Or Lewis Hamilton and Bono, whose iconic radio “Hammer time” will always be remembered.

Charles Leclerc also had a great bond with his now-former engineer Xavi Marcos. Over the years, we’ve heard some iconic messages from Marcos on the radio, and some rants from Leclerc. The infamous “Box now, Box now for hard… Stay out. Stay out” incident at the Monaco GP and Leclerc’s “Xavi, you need to tell me that before” will always be remembered by the Tifosi. 

But now the Spaniard has been replaced by another Ferrari engineer named Bryan Bozzi, and he will be taking over as Charles Leclerc’s race engineer. 

Who is Charles Leclerc’s New Race Engineer Bryan Bozzi? What was his Previous Role at Ferrari?

Xavi Marcos had been Charles Leclerc’s race engineer ever since he made the move to Ferrari, and changing the race engineer would affect the Monegasque a bit. We’ve already seen this season when Valtteri Bottas’ engineer was replaced, the Finnish Driver struggled on the track with traffic and wasn’t getting the timely updates on the radio that he wanted. 

Regardless, Bryan Bozzi will take over the throne of the race engineer from the Emilia Romagna GP. Bozzi is an Italian local and has been working with the Maranello-based team for over a decade now. Charles Leclerc’s new race engineer graduated from the University of Bath with a degree in mechanical engineering. 

Bozzi started his Ferrari career in June 2012 when he joined Scuderia as a Wind Tunnel R&D engineer. He worked in that position for over 2 years before being promoted in December 2014 as an Aero Track Group Engineer. After 4 years of hard work, Bryan Bozzi made it as a Racing engineer for the Ferrari F1 team and has been working in the same position. During his time as a racing engineer, he became Charles Leclerc’s performance engineer and is now being promoted to the Monegasque’s race engineer.

Ferrari made the announcement of Bozzi taking up this role on X about a week before the Imola GP weekend began as they wrote, “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.”

But why is Xavi Marcos being replaced by Bryan Bozzi? Is he moving to another team or is he being sent to some other project within Ferrari?

What happened to Charles Leclerc’s former race engineer Xavi Marcos?

While it is very easy to assume with the current market in F1 and the silly season going on Xavi Marcos might’ve been poached by another team. But, the reality is that Ferrari has moved the Spaniard within the company, away from F1, to other projects and programs of the Scuderia. Ferrari in their Social Media post about Xavi Marcos’ move explained how his experience in F1 will help the company massively in the project that he will overlook now.

Xavi Marcos had been Charles Leclerc’s race engineer ever since the Monegasque made the move to Ferrari. Although both Leclerc and Marcos respect each other a lot, there have been some sour moments in their relationship, especially the times when Ferrari made the wrong strategy calls. Honestly, before Frederic Vasseur came in, Ferrari was indeed known for their strategic shambles. 

Regardless, Charles Leclerc took it upon himself to wish Xavi Marcos a great future and cherished the moments that he spent with his former race engineer. Leclerc posted a picture with Xavi Marcos on his Instagram as a farewell post and thanked him for all that he’s done for the Monegasque. 

The caption of the post read, “Grazie mille di tutto Xavi.So many years working together, my first pole, my first win as well as my first year in Ferrari was alongside you and you always got the better out of me by pushing so hard no matter the situation we were in. Thank you for everything and good luck for your new adventures in the future.”

How do you think things will unfold for Charles Leclerc with Bryan Bozzi as his race engineer? Will Leclerc face the same problems as Bottas is facing with his new engineer? We’ll have to wait for the Imola GP and see for ourselves.