Why F1 shouldn’t be hiding its most interesting characters

Have you ever wondered who Lewis Hamilton’s new race engineer is? What does the man Hamilton described as his “Italian Bono” – because their relationship reminds him of the one he had with Peter Bonnington at Mercedes – think about that comparison? How does he feel about returning to the race team for the first time since serving as Kimi Raikkonen’s engineer back in 2018? Does he enjoy suddenly finding himself in the spotlight as one of the key members of Formula 1’s most successful driver-team partnership?

These are exactly the kinds of stories modern F1 should be telling. 

You could have found the answers by reading one of his interviews or listening to a podcast he’d appeared on – had he done any. But, of course, he hasn’t. Because he works in F1, one of the most closed and tightly controlled environments in professional sport. 

So the only things you really know are that his name is Carlo Santi, he’s Italian, and he has worked for Ferrari for years. Beyond that, there’s remarkably little. His Wikipedia page doesn’t tell you much more than that. 

You might wonder why nobody has ever tried to interview him. The reality is that most journalists probably don’t even ask anymore. Spend enough years covering F1 and you quickly learn which interview requests are worth making – and which are destined to disappear into a team’s PR inbox forever. Sitting down with the race engineer of a leading driver falls firmly into the second category. 

Gianpiero Lambiase has given perhaps a handful of interviews during his time as Max Verstappen’s race engineer – and even those came when Red Bull felt particularly generous towards media outlets close to Verstappen’s camp. If someone as recognisable as GP is effectively unavailable, what chance does anyone else have? 

F1 teams like to shield anyone outside what they regard as their official spokespersons. There is, of course, some logic behind that. Not everybody enjoys public attention. Some people find it stressful. Others simply aren’t comfortable speaking publicly. And teams don’t want key personnel distracted by media attention or worrying about headlines generated from something they said a week earlier. 

But surely someone like Lambiase, who has spent years working alongside one of the most demanding and uncompromising athletes in world sport, knows how to deal with pressure. 

The perspective of Lambiase (centre), and similar prominent figures in key roles, needs to be heard more widely

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

F1’s instinct to protect and gatekeep almost everything can be difficult to understand at times, particularly when the championship is trying so hard to conquer the American market. There may still be something to learn from the way US racing series approach exactly the same issue. 

Watch the Indianapolis 500 broadcast and it may hurt a European fan’s eyes. It’s not just the crew chiefs who get interviewed; drivers’ wives and girlfriends regularly appear on screen too. Talking! Somehow the world keeps turning despite reporters climbing onto the pitwall for a quick chat with team members. 

In F1, simply attempting to speak to an engineer in the paddock without prior approval is likely to earn you a stern conversation with the team’s PR department. 

In more than a decade covering F1, some of the most fascinating interviews I’ve conducted have been with the sport’s smartest people – and, sorry guys, they usually aren’t the drivers. Yet more often than not, those interview requests are rejected for some vague PR reason. 

In more than a decade covering F1, some of the most fascinating interviews I’ve conducted have been with the sport’s smartest people – and, sorry guys, they usually aren’t the drivers

F1 is one of the biggest sporting spectacles on the planet. Yet when it comes to people allowed to tell its stories, the pool has effectively shrunk to the 22 drivers and a handful of team principals expected to generate media coverage throughout an entire season. 

The irony is that F1 constantly talks about storytelling. It invests millions into content, documentaries and social media in an effort to attract new audiences. Yet some of the sport’s most interesting personalities remain almost invisible simply because teams prefer them that way. 

Santi is one example. Lambiase is another. And when was the last time you read a long interview with Bonnington? 

F1 doesn’t have a shortage of great characters. It has a habit of hiding them.

This article is one of many in the monthly Autosport magazine. For more premium content, take a look at the Summer 2026 issue and subscribe today.

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Photo by: Penske Entertainment