Ferrari have announced they are to replace Riccardo Adami as Lewis Hamilton’s race engineer for the 2026 Formula One season, after the pair endured what appeared to be a fractious and testing relationship during the seven-time world champion’s first season with the Scuderia.
Ferrari issued a statement on Friday stating Adami would be moved to a new role with the team’s driver academy as academy and test previous cars manager, adding that his replacement as Hamilton’s race engineer, the crucial link between team and driver on the pit wall, would be announced in due course.
During his first year with Ferrari, a trying season with the car well off the pace of the frontrunners and with Hamilton struggling to adapt to a new team, his relationship with Adami appeared to be far from easy. The pair endured several terse exchanges with Hamilton expressing frustration and confusion, notably in Monaco when he asked his engineer at the end of the race: “Are you upset with me or something?” He appeared to receive no reply.
Hamilton dismissed speculation that the pair did not enjoy a good working relationship at the time as “BS” and said Adami had “been amazing to work with, he’s a great guy”.
However, Hamilton went on to suffer the worst season of his career. He failed to claim a podium and finished sixth in the drivers’ championship, behind his teammate Charles Leclerc in fifth, while Ferrari were fourth in the constructors’ championship, 435 points behind the champions, McLaren.
Hamilton has been outspoken in his dissatisfaction, describing last season as a “nightmare” at one point and, after being knocked out in Q1 at the final race of the season in Abu Dhabi, was at the end of his tether. “I don’t have the words to describe the feeling that I have inside,” he said. “An unbearable amount of anger and rage. There is not really much I can say about it.” He intimated in Abu Dhabi that he expected there to be changes made and was explicit that the team could not carry on as it was.
“My surroundings in terms of personal personnel, team personnel, how you utilise people, whether people need to move into different positions to work better, all these different things need to be looked upon in my personal space so that we can optimise our teamwork,” he said.
Adami had previously been race engineer to Sebastian Vettel and Carlos Sainz, and being moved sideways from such a pivotal role suggests Ferrari is heeding Hamilton’s entreaties during the close season.
