Ferrari has confirmed a key personnel change for Lewis Hamilton’s side of the garage, with race engineer Riccardo Adami moving to a different role within the team. The shift comes after a challenging debut season at Maranello for the seven-time world champion.
Adami, who previously worked with drivers including Sebastian Vettel and Carlos Sainz, will transition to a position managing the team’s driver academy and test cars. Ferrari stated that a new race engineer for Hamilton will be announced at a later date.
Hamilton’s first year with the Scuderia proved difficult, marked by a car that lacked the pace to consistently challenge at the front. The British driver finished sixth in the standings without a single podium, while Ferrari placed fourth in the constructors’ championship.
Throughout the season, radio communications between Hamilton and Adami occasionally appeared strained, with the driver expressing audible frustration over team radio on several occasions. While Hamilton publicly dismissed rumors of a poor working relationship at the time, calling such talk “BS” and praising Adami as “amazing to work with,” his overall performance and post-race comments indicated deep dissatisfaction.
After a particularly tough final race weekend in Abu Dhabi, where he was eliminated in the first segment of qualifying, Hamilton described feeling “an unbearable amount of anger and rage.” He strongly suggested that changes were necessary within his team environment to improve performance.
“Everything needs to be looked at—how we use people, whether personnel need to move into different positions,” Hamilton stated at the season’s end. “We have to optimize our teamwork.”
The decision to reassign Adami appears to be a direct response to that call for review, signaling Ferrari’s intent to restructure its support system around its star signing as the team prepares for the 2026 campaign.