Hamilton confirms Ferrari race engineer update after frustrated radio exchanges

Lewis Hamilton has issued an update on his relationship with Ferrari race engineer Ricciardo Adami, after a frustrating start to their Formula 1 career together.

The dynamic between a race engineer and a driver is crucial, as the driver in the cockpit relies on their engineer to relay important information from the team such as strategy changes, or when to come into the pits.

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F1’s most successful racing drivers have all had strong relationships with their race engineers, such as Max Verstappen with Gianpiero Lambiase and - of course - Hamilton and Peter Bonnington at Mercedes.

The seven-time world champion has had trouble adjusting to his new race engineer at Ferrari, with their tense team radio messages often grabbing headlines after a race weekend.

Hamilton’s P4 finish in Imola has rather perked up the Brit’s attitude however, where he hailed the team for their strategy and the communication from Adami.

"The team did a fantastic job with the strategy, they were faultless. We’re slowly getting there. Riccardo [Adami] did a fantastic job with his communication with me," Hamilton said to Sky Sports Italia after the race.

"I was calm, so he was calm and the team were calm in executing the strategy and the pit stops were awesome. So overall, mega!

"I was hoping for some extra laps otherwise we could have maybe fought for a podium."

Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari fight back in Imola

Hamilton’s picture of tranquillity at Ferrari is a far cry from the exchange between the pair in Miami, where the 40-year-old’s frustration emerged as sarcasm.

Ferrari stalled on orchestrating a switch between Hamilton and his team-mate Charles Leclerc during the Miami GP, which prompted the champion to grow increasingly frustrated.

When Ferrari finally switched their positions, Hamilton snapped at Adami in a frustrated team radio message, where he said: “have a tea-break while you're at it!”

However, Hamilton was all smiles after Imola, a major departure from the devastated figure he cut following qualifying, after both himself and Leclerc failed to make it into Q3.

The Emilia-Romagna GP marked Hamilton’s first race at Ferrari in front of the tifosi, and with his best result of the season coinciding with the team’s upgrades, the Brit will be hoping to build on the result in Imola for the rest of the season.

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