F1 2026: Lewis Hamilton needs to hire outside of Ferrari - here's why

Hamilton and Vasseur edited alongside one another in Ferrari kit with black background split by yellow and red centre lines — Photo: © IMAGO

Lewis Hamilton

Lewis Hamilton needs to hire outside of Ferrari - here's why

Hamilton needs an outsider to thrive at Ferrari

Kerry Violet F1 News Editor

F1 editor and journalist covering motorsport since 2024.

Friday 6 February 2026 21:00

Lewis Hamilton is still waiting to learn who will take on the role of his race engineer at Ferrari for the 2026 season - at least publicly, anyway.

The seven-time world champion is thought to be in the midst of a significant restructure, reshaping both his own support team and elements within the Scuderia as he looks to sharpen the small details that could help him achieve success at Ferrari.

Following his first complete campaign as a Ferrari driver, Hamilton managed just a single podium finish across 24 grand prix weekends.

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The 41-year-old now faces the challenge of proving his 2025 Chinese GP sprint race win was not a fluke, and that he still has what it takes to return to top form before retiring.

Last year, Hamilton often cut a severely dejected figure, but ahead of the 2026 campaign which is now just one month away, the Brit appears to be much happier knowing major personnel changes are taking place.

Following the news, rumours naturally swirled over who could replace Adami, and though nothing has been confirmed by the team, one man's name has stuck.

Why Ferrari must look elsewhere for new Hamilton ally

Ahead of the Barcelona shakedown where Hamilton topped the unofficial timesheets in his new Ferrari, Italian media named the Brit's potential new race engineer as Cedric Michel-Grosjean.

Sky Sports reporter Craig Slater then addressed the rumours following Michel-Grosjean's departure from the papaya team, confirming his understanding from his paddock sources that the former McLaren engineer was 'Ferrari-bound' in 2026.

Slater then posed the question during a Sky F1 testing roundup whether the man who played an instrumental role in returning McLaren to the top of the championship standings would be fit for the role of Hamilton's engineer, especially considering he has never done the job before.

"Is he going to be Lewis Hamilton's race engineer, though?" Slater asked. "He has never been a race engineer within Formula 1. A good numbers guy, he was able to marry the numbers to Oscar Piastri last season, apparently, very effectively, so someone that could work in that area. But quite a step, isn't it, if he does get that job, to have never been a race engineer?

"For your first job to be with the seven-time world champion under a new ruleset at Ferrari?"

But Adami's stint alongside Hamilton in 2025 proves that sometimes, the success between a driver and their race engineer does not stem from experience, but instead from compatibility.

Adami and Hamilton were very obviously not a good fit all the way from their competitive debut in Melbourne to the season finale in Abu Dhabi, where even then, the Italian engineer was accused of blanking the former Mercedes star.

Hamilton was left constantly asking for more information, or at times, requesting that Adami just stopped talking over team radio entirely. But Adami had an impressive resume and on paper, was a good fit for Hamilton.

The Italian had previously been a race engineer for Carlos Sainz, who remains Ferrari's most recent grand prix winner, and F1 legend Sebastian Vettel.

Could McLaren man be the answer to Hamilton's F1 woes?

The reality is that every driver demands something different from their race engineer and so the perfect pairing for Hamilton perhaps could come from someone just starting out as a race engineer.

Someone like Michel-Grosjean could be just what he has been missing since his move to Ferrari; a fresh face, not moulded by any previous driver preferences, who offers a clean slate, ready to learn and assist a seven-time champion on his mission to potentially pick up an eighth title.

More importantly, Michel-Grosjean has been trained by McLaren, not Ferrari, so he won't have picked up any habits from the Scuderia that may not be to Hamilton's liking (something which also seriously reduces the chances of any further incidents like Leclerc's hilarious but rather telling 'the seat is full of water' exchange with Ferrari engineer Bryan Bozzi).

McLaren are no amateurs, and they may have just prepped and primed one of their own into the perfect race engineer for the next stage of Hamilton's career.

When does the 2026 F1 season start?

Hamilton will be in action when the 2026 season starts in Melbourne for the Australian Grand Prix, where he will hopefully have been assigned a new race engineer! The first race of the year takes place on March 8 at 3pm local time (AEDT), 4am GMT, and 11pm ET. The first round of pre-season tests in Bahrain will kick off before then on February 11 until 13, and the second round continues from February 18 until February 20.

Written by

Kerry Violet - F1 News Editor

Having graduated from the University of Sheffield with a 2:1 in Journalism in 2022, Kerry continued her pursuit of finding a full-time position in motorsport through work with the F1 Arcade in London, where she got to meet true fans of the sport and make a live grand prix watch party memorable for them. It was here that she confirmed her dream of combining her background in journalism and love of motorsport, going on to volunteer with the female-led platform Empoword Journalism. Having completed stints as a screen editor and sports editor, Kerry landed her first F1-specific editorial role with GPFans and has thoroughly enjoyed continuing to work closely with the sport ever since. The access GPFans offers Kerry has allowed her to interview big names such as Naomi Schiff and David Coulthard and given her experiences she could only have dreamt of as a young F1 fan.

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F1 Lewis Hamilton Ferrari McLaren