Ferrari shuffles the deck: Hamilton to get new race engineer for 2026 as Adami moves upstairs
Lewis Hamilton’s second season in red will come with a new voice on the other end of the radio. Ferrari has confirmed Riccardo Adami will step away from race engineering duties after one year working with the seven-time world champion, taking on a broader role within Maranello from 2026.
Adami, a long-serving fixture on Ferrari’s pit wall, will become Driver Academy and Test Previous Cars Manager — a job title that tells you plenty about what the Scuderia wants from him next. He’ll funnel two decades of trackside know‑how into the pipeline of young talent and Ferrari’s testing program, with the clear aim of sharpening the edges of a team that’s pushing to turn promise into silverware.
For Hamilton, who joined Ferrari for 2025 alongside Charles Leclerc, it’s a clean break after a single campaign paired with Adami. The identity of his new race engineer hasn’t been announced, but the brief is obvious: slot into one of the most intense roles in the sport and build instant chemistry with the most decorated driver on the grid.
If you’re wondering how much that matters, ask any driver who’s had to rebuild the bond. The race engineer is the filter, the strategist, the therapist — the person who translates a driver’s feel into setup direction and a team’s chaos into calm. A new voice changes the rhythm: how information is delivered, how feedback is prioritized, how trust is built under pressure. Little differences on the radio can become big differences on Sunday.
Ferrari, for its part, is making a tidy internal play. Moving Adami into the Academy and TPC programs isn’t a step back; it’s a way to weaponize experience. Those “previous cars” run programs are where future Ferrari drivers and engineers learn the habits that count — how to process runs, how to give useful feedback, how to work to Ferrari’s cadence. Put a respected ex‑race engineer in charge and the culture follows.
There’s also a quiet bit of continuity here. Rather than losing Adami’s accrued knowledge to another team, Ferrari keeps him in the building and points him at the future. It’s succession planning the way top teams like it: engineer the present, incubate the next generation, and make sure both speak the same language.
The open question is who takes the headset beside Hamilton next year. Does Ferrari promote from within — someone steeped in its processes and temperament — or reach for a fresh angle? Either way, the choice will be made with one goal in mind: give Hamilton a partner who can extract the best from a car that, on the balance of recent seasons, has the pace to fight but has needed more Sundays to fall its way.
Hamilton, meanwhile, won’t be fazed by the change. He’s spent 2025 embedding himself at Ferrari, learning a new team culture and a new car alongside Leclerc. Add a new race engineer into that mix for 2026 and it’s another reset, but one that can pay off quickly if the chemistry clicks. The margins are thinner than ever, and so much of modern F1 is execution — pit wall to cockpit, lap after lap.
Adami’s move and Hamilton’s forthcoming partner on the radio won’t make headlines like a driver transfer, but inside a team they can be just as pivotal. Ferrari has set the stage: experience to the academy, a fresh start on the pit wall, and a clear intent to align every department behind the drivers who have to turn all of it into points.
We’ll wait for the name. The stakes, as ever in Maranello, are already clear.
