F1 2026: Lewis Hamilton is being sabotaged by Ferrari and it's so avoidable

Hamilton in his Ferrari F1 car with image of Hamilton in conversation with Adami edited behind, red, yellow and black block background — Photo: © IMAGO

Lewis Hamilton

Lewis Hamilton is being sabotaged by Ferrari and it's so avoidable

Lewis Hamilton is in a mess he should never have been in

Dan Ripley Global Editor

Professional F1 journalist and analyst

Thursday 29 January 2026 21:51 Updated: 18:40

Here we are into year two of the Lewis Hamilton at Ferrari project and by now he should be settled and finally be in a position to try and win that elusive eighth title.

Well, that ain't happening - at least the settled aspect. Partly this is because he had a poor first season at Maranello, failing to earn a single grand prix podium for the first time in his career.

That offers zero momentum to go into 2026 having been thrashed by Charles Leclerc last season, who with seven podiums outscored the seven-time world champion by 242 points to 156.

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There are many theories for why this happened, the fact he was 40 years old and past his best, while struggling with Italian culture and the way Ferrari work. These do have merit but what clearly didn't help him was his relationship with his race engineer Riccardo Adami.

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It can't be underestimated how important getting a correct race engineer is for a driver. F1 is a very political sport. On the extreme side, there are back-stabbings all over the place, and even within teams so many drivers can get paranoid about favouritism and sometimes this is well founded.

So there has to be one guy within a team who a race driver can talk to in full confidence knowing he has his interests at heart. That guy very often is the race engineer. Think Will Joseph with Lando Norris, fighting his corner every step of the way, or Gianpiero Lambiase being the best guy for Max Verstappen's full trust.

If it isn't the race engineer, or the relationship is poor - it doesn't often end well. And that brings us to Hamilton and Adami.

Why did Hamilton and Adami split?

Early on it was kind to say they had 'teething issues'. Hamilton shouting down to his Italian race engineer to 'have a tea break while you are it' in response to a confusing and slow radio comms at the Miami Grand Prix wasn't a good sign. Fair chances were given for it to improve. It never did.

Throughout the season the communication was clunky, uncomfortable and full of awkward silences. There was no chemistry either end. From the outside it appeared both were suffering each other.

And you know what. Fine, it happens. It's a mistake any team or duo can make. They tried and it didn't work. Time to move on, and by the time of the final race of the season in Abu Dhabi back in December this should have already been well known.

Lewis Hamilton tests the new Ferrari ahead of the 2026 season

Lewis Hamilton Ferrari Grand Prix Record
Grand Prix	Position
Australia	10
China	DSQ
Japan	7
Bahrain	5
Saudi Arabia	7
Miami	8
Emilia Romagna	4
Monaco	5
Spain	6
Canada	6
Austria	4
Great Britain	4
Belgium	7
Hungary	12
Netherlands	DNF
Italy	6
Azerbaijan	8
Singapore	8
United States	4
Mexico	8
Brazil	DNF
Las Vegas	8
Qatar	12
Abu Dhabi	8

With this in mind, Hamilton and Adami should have already known this was their last race together, with Ferrari already searching for a replacement. This didn't happen and if it did, it wasn't a great search.

Rumours surfaced over the winter that Adami would be staying on for 2026. While this was untrue, the point is this story shouldn't have had a chance to come out. Ferrari should have confirmed at the end of the season that Adami and Hamilton would split, burying the negative news underneath Lando Norris's title win.

Instead, Ferrari dragged it out to the middle of January to announce their split, days before testing, and with little to no time to find a replacement from outside the team - which is exactly where there No 1 candidate is based.

So instead of having a brand new engineer for testing, Hamilton is being helped by Bryan Bozzi, who is Leclerc's race engineer. This is nothing but timewasting from Ferrari.

Who will be Hamilton's new Ferrari race engineer?

McLaren's Cedric Michel-Grosjean is the reported target for Hamilton and Ferrari, who is on gardening leave with McLaren after working with Oscar Piastri last season. However, he has never been a race engineer.

In summary, Lewis Hamilton is without a key Ferrari ally in the build up to 2026, with the chance he is going to enter the season cold with a new race engineer who has never done the job before. It shouldn't be this way.

I mean it may just work (somehow) but this all just feels like needless sabotage from Ferrari for a situation that should have been sorted months ago.

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Written by

Dan Ripley - Global Editor

I've been a massive F1 fan since the mid 1990s and continue to study the history of the sport long before that. As an experienced motor sport reporter covering F1, MotoGP and the LeMans 24 Hour race, being part of GPFans has allowed me to work with a diverse team with all sorts of different backgrounds in watching the sport and given me a greater appreciation of F1.

View full biography

Lewis Hamilton Ferrari Riccardo Adami