Mercedes chief has just told Ferrari why they must replace Lewis Hamilton’s race engineer in 2026

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Lewis Hamilton had a miserable first season as a Ferrari driver in 2025, and one of the trends to emerge from it was his bad relationship with race engineer Riccardo Adami.

The 40-year-old moved to Maranello at the start of 2025 and, with it, had to build a rapport with a new race engineer as Peter Bonnington chose to stay at Mercedes. Hamilton worked with ‘Bono’ throughout his time in Brackley, which produced six drivers’ titles in 12 seasons.

Mercedes promoted Bonnington to the role of head of race engineering, alongside working as Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s race engineer in the Italian’s rookie season, to fend off the threat of Hamilton taking the Englishman to Ferrari after securing his move back in February 2024.

Hamilton, instead, inherited Adami as his race engineer upon joining Ferrari, but he failed to build the same relationship with the Italian that he had built with Bonnington. Adami joined Ferrari in 2015 to work with Sebastian Vettel and worked with Carlos Sainz from 2021 to ‘24.

Ferrari must replace Riccardo Adami, or they risk Lewis Hamilton struggling in 2026

Hamilton and Adami had a raft of tetchy radio exchanges throughout 2025, as they regularly struggled to get on the same page. One of the most notable moments came when Hamilton accused Adami of having “a tea break” in Miami, as Ferrari dithered to impose team orders.

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

Another key flash point came when Adami’s mixed messages drew Hamilton a grid penalty in Monaco for impeding Max Verstappen, having incorrectly claimed the Red Bull driver was not on a flying lap. The pair continued to exchange tense remarks over the radio all season, too.

So, Ferrari should look to replace Adami and give Hamilton a new race engineer before next season, as F1’s 2026 regulations will make the role even more important. F1 is removing the MGU-H from the engine, while increasing the share of electrical power from 20/80 to 50/50.

Mercedes F1 engine chief Hywel Thomas thinks the driver-engineer relationship will be crucial in 2026

Mercedes High Performance Powertrains director Hywel Thomas believes the increased split of electrical power compared to combustion power in 2026 will see drivers rely on their race engineers to avoid running out of power, as well as when to utilise the manual boost setting.

READ MORE: Everything you need to know about the 2026 F1 engine and aero regulations

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“What will definitely change with these regulations is the interaction with the driver, due to the electrical aspects,” Thomas told Motorsport.com. “In general, we will be slightly limited by energy.

“So, it will be about working with the driver to ensure he has the right energy at the right time to defend, to attack, to go as fast as possible.

“And this will certainly require deep thinking both from the driver and the engineers around him, to understand how to race and how to do it correctly. And I think this is a bigger challenge than what we faced in a similar area in 2013-2014.”

F1 is replacing DRS with a manual power boost mode as part of the 2026 regulations, which will let a chasing driver use more of their electrical store when within one second of the car ahead. If Hamilton and Adami continue to clash in 2026, then the Ferrari star could struggle.