Frontrunner to be Lewis Hamilton’s new Ferrari race engineer emerges
An early favourite to be Lewis Hamilton's next Ferrari race engineer has emerged.
The frontrunner to become Lewis Hamilton’s new Ferrari race engineer has emerged.
Luca Diella, who currently serves as Hamilton’s performance engineer, could be his next race engineer, according to Italian outfit La Gazzetta dello Sport.
It comes after Ferrari announced that Riccardo Adami, who engineered Hamilton during the seven-time world champion’s debut season with the team in 2025, would be moved into a new role.
"The appointment of the new race engineer for car number 44 will be announced in due course,” Ferrari confirmed in a statement.
Diella started work at Ferrari last year but previously worked with Hamilton during his time at Mercedes.
The Italian engineer joined Mercedes in 2019, initially as a performance engineer focusing on the team’s power unit optimisation.
Diella worked as the trackside performance engineer for Hamilton over a four-season period.
He reunited with Hamilton to become part of his team at Ferrari ahead of last year’s Belgian Grand Prix.
Why have Ferrari made the change?
Hamilton endured a disappointing first campaign in red as he failed to finish on the podium in a grand prix for the first time in his illustrious F1 career.
The 41-year-old Briton did claim a pole position and win in the China sprint race, but otherwise had a season to forget as he finished sixth in the drivers’ championship and was outperformed by teammate Charles Leclerc.
Hamilton was knocked out in the first part of qualifying at the final three races of the 2025 season.
One issue that appeared to hinder Hamilton’s adaptation at Ferrari was his relationship with Adami, with the pair never truly gelling over the course of the 24-race campaign.
Even at the last race of the year in Abu Dhabi, the communication between Hamilton led to confusion.
Hamilton hinted at plans to “shake up” the team around him ahead of his second season with Ferrari.
“Through my break I will analyse those decisions and make markers on how I can make better decisions in the future,” he told Sky Sports F1.
“My surroundings in terms of my personal personnel, team personnel, how do 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.”
Ferrari will unveil their 2026 challenger, the SF-26 on Friday 23 January.
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Lewis regularly attends Grands Prix for Crash.net around the world. Often reporting on the action from the ground, Lewis tells the stories of the people who matter in the sport.