Hamilton to get new Ferrari F1 race engineer in 2026

Riccardo Adami will no longer serve as Lewis Hamilton's race engineer at Ferrari as the Italian has taken up a new role within the Formula 1 team's young driver programme.

Adami, who was previously the race engineer with both Sebastian Vettel and Carlos Sainz at the team, will now oversee the testing of previous cars running for the Ferrari Driver Academy and thus relinquishes his trackside role.

Hamilton was paired with Adami for his first season at the Prancing Horse, although the partnership was put under scrutiny when apparent early communication issues were publicly broadcast on F1's world feed.

While the two achieved early success with Hamilton's sprint race victory in China, the seven-time champion's season petered out with a series of Q1 eliminations.

It had been suggested that the relationship between Hamilton and Adami had lacked the requisite chemistry owing to the occasional terseness over the radio, although this was denied by both driver and team.

A communique provided by the team stated that: "Scuderia Ferrari HP announces that Riccardo Adami has moved to a new role within the Scuderia Ferrari Driver Academy as Scuderia Ferrari Driver Academy and Test Previous Cars Manager, where his extensive trackside experience and Formula 1 expertise contributes to the development of future talent and to strengthening performance culture across the program.

Riccardo Adami, Engineer Ferrari

Photo by: Ferrari

"Scuderia Ferrari HP would like to thank Riccardo for his commitment and contribution to his trackside role and wishes him every success in his new position.

"The appointment of the new Race Engineer for car #44 will be announced in due course."

Adami had been Vettel's race engineer at the Toro Rosso team, and had also fulfilled a similar role for the likes of Daniel Ricciardo, Sebastien Buemi, and Vitantonio Liuzzi within the Faenza squad. He then reunited with Vettel upon leaving Toro Rosso in 2015.

After 2025's Australian Grand Prix, Hamilton responded to the assertions that radio traffic between the pair suggested that the two had not meshed, suggesting that people should "go and listen to the radio calls with others and their engineers, they're far worse".

Ferrari's head of track engineering Matteo Togninalli added during the Qatar weekend that "what you see from outside is worse" than the reality of their collaboration.

Regardless, Hamilton will have to form a new working relationship with another engineer; it is unknown whether Ferrari will seek to promote from within, or hire externally.