Lewis Hamilton blanked by Ferrari in tense team radio exchange

Lewis Hamilton’s final message signing off for the 2025 F1 season was blanked by his Ferrari team in Abu Dhabi.

For the first time in his F1 career, Hamilton finishes a season without scoring a single podium across the year, only managing a best finish of fourth in a grand prix and a sprint race win early doors in China.

The champion’s year rounded off with a soul-destroying string of Q1 exits in Las Vegas, Qatar and Abu Dhabi, having to mount a strong recovery drive at Yas Marina on Sunday to transform a P16 grid slot into an eighth place finish.

Meanwhile, Hamilton’s team-mate Charles Leclerc managed to wrangle his Ferrari into the top four during the opening stages of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, and even looked at certain points like he could steal third place – and the title – from Lando Norris.

Nevertheless, the 40-year-old attempted to sign off the season with positivity, issuing a message of gratitude to his Ferrari team and race engineer Riccardo Adami via team radio.

Hamilton aired by Adami

As Hamilton completed his cool down lap, he said over the airwaves: “Long season, guys. Grazie a tutti. Thank you for your kindness. I'm grateful for all the hard work. I'll always fight for you guys. Always. Grazie."

At this point a response from Adami would have been welcomed, but instead Hamilton was met with an eerie silence as he drifted his Ferrari around the Yas Marina circuit and the fireworks exploded for a new British F1 world champion.

Hamilton was left hanging for nearly a minute, and several corners, before he tried again and asked Adami: “Did you get that message? The one time you don’t reply.”

In short? Painfully awkward.

Adami then immediately responded with a nervous chuckle, and said: “Yeah we got it. Sorry we were talking. Thank you very much, it was awesome working with you. Grazie Mille.”

In fairness to Adami, the race engineer congratulated Hamilton on his comeback prior to the champion’s initial message, and said after the race: “P8. It was a pretty good job out there, well done. Very good come back.”

Yet, when Hamilton reflects on his first season at Ferrari, he will undoubtedly pinpoint his poor communication with Adami as a weakness on his side of the garage.

Speaking to the media ahead of the Abu Dhabi GP, Hamilton discussed changes to his own team at Ferrari for 2026, although Adami was not named as part of this reshuffle.

"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," Hamilton explained.

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