Martin Brundle produced a scathing assessment of Ferrari's current situation with engine reliability issues already causing heavy disruption to their early-season plans.
Ahead of just the second race of the year, Charles Leclerc has already been slapped with a grid penalty for exceeding the number of control electronics components allowed per driver, per season.
That particular part of the engine was replaced ahead of the Bahrain Grand Prix, while the replacement failed and contributed to the power unit issue which forced him the retire. It is believed that both cannot be recovered, and that is why Leclerc is already on his third of the season and taking a 10-place penalty in Jeddah.
Leclerc is also on his second energy store of the season already, while both Ferrari drivers have also taken a new internal combustion engine ahead of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. Carlos Sainz finished fourth in Bahrain but suffered from a lot of tyre degradation which hampered his progress.
Looking at that picture, Brundle does not seem to harbour a lot of hope for Ferrari's chances of doing something special this season. "The reliability – Leclerc taking a 10-place grid drop here, it's jaw drop and eyes roll time," said the Sky Sports F1 pundit.
"Already? It seems incredible that they've burned through two control units. There are obviously some issues there to be sorted out and reliability is everything. Teams, you'd imagine, have got that sort of thing aced by now, so that's a shocker."
Still, though, Brundle at least had one positive thing to say about the Italian team ahead of the race weekend in Jeddah. He added: "I think the Ferrari will look better here than in Bahrain."
The Italian media have been more critical of Ferrari than anyone else, but Sainz snapped back at some of the criticism. He said: "I actually am very surprised how some people back at home have been trying to destabilise a bit the team. Because some call it crisis – we've only done one race, it's impossible to judge the performance in this race.
"We are the first ones that are not happy with how this first race went and we are the most bothered about it. And we are the most affected by it. And we are going to try as much as possible to try and improve it. So yeah, I'm pretty calm about it and I see people at home committed, focused and with a very clear target in mind, and I include myself in it."
