Food poisoning almost robbed Leclerc brothers of making history in Abu Dhabi

Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc faced challenges on the opening day at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix after having suffered food poisoning on Thursday before he was hit with a ten-place grid penalty for exceeding his power unit allocation.

Ahead of his final race with Ferrari, Carlos Sainz was forced to miss the opening practice at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, with the sporting regulations stating that every driver is required to hand his car over to a rookie driver – a racer who has completed a maximum of two grands prix – during the season.

The Spaniard was replaced by his team-mate Charles Leclerc’s 24-year-old brother Arthur, who drove Sainz’s car in the first free practice session. Arthur and Charles Leclerc became the first time in Formula 1 history that two brothers were on track at the same time, driving for the same team.

However, things got complicated before the action got underway in FP1 as the eight-time F1 racer winner revealed that he has suffered food poisoning which meant he could barely sleep last night.

“It all started unfortunately last night when I got food poisoned and couldn’t sleep all the night which… I’m so tired, I just want to sleep now. It wasn’t so easy, even this morning I didn’t feel like I wanted to drive, but obviously the huge motivation of the day was doing the FP1 with my younger brother.

Charles Leclerc and Arthur Leclerc’s mother, Pascale Leclerc, was captured smiling while watching her sons driving for Scuderia Ferrari in the FP1 session of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

“This is a dream that [has] come true today for both of us, for all of our family that travelled all the way from Monaco to see that and it was a very emotional moment. I definitely had to put the helmet on very early because I also was emotional.

Although Leclerc managed to get his act together to climb into his car despite feeling unwell, he was then forced to wait in the pits for the first 20 minutes of the opening practice session in Abu Dhabi, with a technical issue preventing him to head out on to the track.

It later emerged that the Monégasque endured a battery issue on his car. Although Ferrari managed to fix the problem, the Scuderia was forced to install a new unit into Leclerc’s car.

The change means that Leclerc has now exceeded the allocation of two energy stores per season and must serve a grid drop, which means that he will be hit with a 10-place penalty for the season finale at the Yas Marina Circuit.

“And then that’s where everything started to go wrong unfortunately because as soon as we fired up the car, we saw that there was a problem with the energy store. [There were] lots of things going through my head – first, am I going to drive this FP1 with my brother which is a unique opportunity, and obviously also the championship.

“That makes our weekend a lot more difficult, but that doesn’t demotivate me at all. I feel a little bit better tonight already, I’ll have a good night’s sleep and I’ll come back tomorrow with a battery fully recharged. Hopefully we’ll have a great day tomorrow and then have an amazing recovery on Sunday.”

This weekend will be an emotional one for Ferrari from other reasons as well. Sainz, who joined the Scuderia in 2021, will leave the Maranello-based outfit after four successful years which saw the Madrid-born racer clinch four victories.

Reflecting on his last weekend when he is sharing the Ferrari garage with Sainz, Leclerc added: “[That is] another thing that adds to this up-and-down weekend, emotionally speaking,” the eight-time race winner said. “We really want to finish on a high.

“This morning we ended up watching FP1 together and we were a bit sad both of us for what had happened, because obviously we rely on each other in trying to win this constructors’ and we really want to end these four years together in the best possible way.

“But sometimes things happen outside of our control and that’s what happened today. But we’ve had an amazing relationship, amazing four years, and we’ll give it all until the very last lap in order to end these four years together in the best possible way.”