Lewis Hamilton alarm bells ringing with F1 insider shocked by Ferrari fail

Ferrari

Lewis Hamilton alarm bells ringing with F1 insider shocked by Ferrari fail

Lewis Hamilton still doesn't have a race engineer

Sheona Mountford F1 Journalist

Motorsport journalist working in F1 since 2024.

Thursday 29 January 2026 09:43

Lewis Hamilton's current race engineer situation at Ferrari is ringing 'alarm bells' for one F1 insider.

Prior to the Barcelona shakedown, it was announced that Hamilton's race engineer Riccardo Adami had stepped down from the role for the 2026 season.

It is rumoured that McLaren performance engineer Cedric Michel-Grosjean is 'Ferrari bound' and will become Hamilton's new race engineer, although this is thus far unconfirmed by the team.

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However, Hamilton didn't have a full-time race engineer for the five-day Barcelona shakedown, and instead shared Charles Leclerc's engineer Bryan Bozzi.

Hamilton's predicament was raised on Sky Sports' Barcelona shakedown show on the second day of testing, where pundit Karun Chandhok admitted 'alarm bells are ringing' over the situation.

Hamilton race engineer prompts confusion

Chandhok said: “The other thing that’s slightly ringing alarm bells for me, is this engineer situation. As far as we understand, Bryan Bozzi - who is Charles Leclerc’s normal race engineer - was running the car, including for Lewis.

“That confuses me, to be perfectly honest. That relationship between driver and race engineer is so, so important. I think getting the feedback from the driver, in my experience the good driver/engineer relationships are the unspoken things. The engineer and the driver should be able to read each other’s minds.

“When one’s complaining about something, the other one is already able to finish their sentences and say ‘we’re going to do this, this, this and this and change it and that will make it better for you’.

“And they haven’t created a situation where Lewis is building that relationship over the winter. I would have loved to have seen him do simulator days, building the relationship, go and get a TPC car. I know it’s a different generation, I know it’s an older car, but just go and bond - build the relationship with the new engineer.

“Also you need to integrate that person into the engineering setup of the race team. They have to work in an environment along with the other engineers when the driver is not around.

“I think the public hear the driver-engineer discussion, but that’s just a microcosm of the bigger conversations happening in that engineering office.

“To me, I’m slightly confused that as we sit here, we’ve already started testing and that bonding and relationship building has not started, off the back of a season which was not good.”

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F1 Lewis Hamilton Ferrari Charles Leclerc Sky Sports Karun Chandhok