Ferrari are still to fix their ‘profound’ problem that is ‘alien’ to Lewis Hamilton

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Ferrari are days away from unveiling their new car for the 2026 F1 regulations era, yet one problem that Lewis Hamilton faced during 2025 looks set to continue this season.

The Scuderia will unveil the SF-26 with an online launch event on the morning of January 23, before the pride of Italy also put their new package on track for the first time at Fiorano that same day. Hamilton and Charles Leclerc are both due to lap the track during the shakedown.

Ferrari have gone all-in under team principal Fred Vasseur on the 2026 F1 regulations being their route back to title contention after an underwhelming 2025 season. The Scuderia were the only one of F1’s top four teams without a Grand Prix victory across last year’s 24 rounds.

Vasseur stopped the development of Ferrari’s 2025 car last April to prioritise their resources on designing their car for the 2026 regulations, which left Hamilton and Leclerc fighting with one arm behind their backs. But Vasseur has yet to fix one problem that troubled Hamilton.

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Ferrari are yet to fix their procedural problems that troubled Lewis Hamilton in 2025

According to FunoAnalisiTecnica, Hamilton was left in a state of ‘adaptive trauma’ after his move to Ferrari in 2025, as the Scuderia’s methods presented a ‘profound’ mismatch from what he knew at Mercedes from 2013 to 2024 – during which he won six F1 drivers’ titles.

READ MORE: Lewis Hamilton’s seven best Mercedes drives before joining Ferrari in 2025

Ferrari’s ways of working were fundamentally ‘alien’ to Hamilton, who faced a situation that was ‘diametrically opposed’ to Leclerc’s last year. Leclerc knows Ferrari’s methods inside out after joining the Scuderia in 2019, following on from his three years in their driver academy.

In particular, rather than any language barriers after Hamilton joined the first non-British F1 team in his career, Ferrari’s dynamics and workflows proved to be ‘less effective’ than what he had experienced at Mercedes. There are no indications that Ferrari have fixed their flaws.

Ferrari are replacing Riccardo Adami to try to help Lewis Hamilton adapt to their ways

It was also in part due to Ferrari’s procedural problems that the decision was made to assign Hamilton a new race engineer to replace Riccardo Adami ahead of the 2026 F1 season. The Scuderia wanted Adami to continue in the role, but he has moved to a new role in the team.

Ferrari have confirmed that Hamilton will have a new race engineer in 2026 after accepting that the Briton and Adami would never get on the same page. Adami will now manage the Ferrari Driver Academy (FDA) and oversee their testing of previous cars (TPC) programme.

Reports indicate that Leclerc’s race engineer Bryan Bozzi will work with Hamilton during the 2026 Barcelona test as Ferrari work on sorting Adami’s permanent successor. It is also said that Ferrari’s performance engineer Luca Diella is in line to be Hamilton’s new race engineer.