Why Ferrari has not found a new F1 race engineer for Lewis Hamilton yet
Lewis Hamilton's former race engineer Riccardo Adami was moved to a new role for the 2026 season with Ferrari
Ferrari has failed to find Lewis Hamilton a permanent replacement race engineer just weeks away from the start of the 2026 Formula 1 season.
In January, the team confirmed that Hamilton's Ferrari race engineer for 2025, Riccardo Adami, would be moved into a different role within the team.
However the Italian outfit has not yet found a proper replacement for Hamilton, as he looks to improve on his difficult debut season with Ferrari.
Instead Hamilton will reportedly be working with Carlo Santi, who previously worked with Kimi Raikkonen at Ferrari, on an interim basis.
The seven-time world champion confirmed on Wednesday that he will be changing race engineer again in the near future.
Speaking during the first day pre-season testing in Bahrain on Wednesday, Hamilton admitted that the changing of engineers will be "detrimental" to his season.
"It's actually quite a difficult period because it's not long-term, the solution that we currently have, it's only going to be a few races.
"So, early on into the season, it's going to be switching up again, and I'll have to learn to work with someone new, so that's detrimental to a season where you want to arrive with people that have done multiple seasons, have been through thick and thin and are calm.
"But it is the situation that I'm faced with and I'll try to do the best that I can. The team is trying to do the best they can to make it as seamless as possible."
Ferrari says that the process will take time and the reason given is that it has not yet found the right person for the job.
A Ferrari spokesperson told media in Bahrain that it was "looking for the right person".
They also moved to quell Hamilton's assertion that it would be detrimental to his season insisting the British driver was "not being put at a disadvantage".
Hamilton’s adaptation at Ferrari was evidently hindered by his relationship with Adami, with the pair never truly gelling over the course of the 24-race campaign last year.
Speculation around whether or not Hamilton would continue to work with Adami for the 2026 was rife after a number of incidents indicating friction between the two, many of which were broadcast over the team radio.
Who Could Replace Adami?
While a permanent replacement has not been confirmed, a frontrunner has previously emerged ahead of the 2026 season.
Luca Diella, who currently serves as Hamilton’s performance engineer, could be his next race engineer, according to Italian outfit Gazzetta dello Sport.
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.
