Lewis Hamilton is to switch race engineers this season, with Ferrari announcing on Friday that Riccardo Adami is to move to a new role within its Formula 1 organisation.
In a disappointing first Ferrari season for the seven-time world champion, one element that came under scrutiny was Hamilton’s relationship with Adami.
Some awkward radio messages between the pair during the season had triggered talk that things were not working as well as had been hoped.
However, Hamilton frequently insisted that the pair of them were getting on well – and that it was wrong for people to read too much into conversations taking place in the heat of the moment.
But with little over one week to go before the first 2026 pre-season test at Barcelona and seven days before the team's new-car launch, Ferrari has revealed that Adami will not continue working with Hamilton.
A statement issued by the team said: “Riccardo Adami has moved to a new role within the Scuderia Ferrari Driver Academy as Scuderia Ferrari Driver Academy and test previous cars manager.”
It added that “his extensive trackside experience and Formula 1 expertise contributes to the development of future talent and to strengthening performance culture across the programme.”
Ferrari said that no successor to Adami had been appointed just yet, but it is logical that a decision on that front needs to be made before action gets underway at Barcelona.
The 2025 issues
Questions about the relationship with Adami were triggered early in the campaign amid a sense Hamilton was frustrated with a lack of quick decision-making.
But Hamilton frequently insisted that things were fine between them.
Speaking in China last March, amid early questions about how they were getting on, Hamilton said: "We're getting to know each other. He's obviously had two champions or more in the past, and there's no issues between us at all.
"Go and listen to the radio calls with others and their engineers – far worse! The radio conversation that Max [Verstappen] has with his engineer over the years: the abuse that poor guy's taken
"You never write about it, but you write about the smallest little discussion I have with mine."
But there were other flashpoints between Hamilton and Adami throughout the campaign.
In Miami in May, annoyed at dithering over a swap of positions with team-mate Charles Leclerc, Hamilton accused the pitwall of "not good teamwork".
He also sarcastically told Adami to take a "tea break while you're at it".
Reflecting afterwards about why he made those remarks, Hamilton said: "It wasn't even anger. It wasn't like 'effing and blinding' or anything like that. It was just like, come on, let's make a decision.
"You're sitting there on the chair, you've got the stuff in front of you, make the decision quick. That's how I was, it was about me."
There was also a controversial moment in Monaco when Hamilton feared that he was being blanked after asking a question on the cool down lap.
Having got no reply to a message of thanks he said: "Are you upset with me or something?"
Ferrari later explained that the issue looked worse than it was because Hamilton had given his radio message on a part of the track where there was no direct communication with the pitwall.
Team boss Fred Vasseur said: "It's not that we are sleeping, it's not that we are having a beer on the pitwall! It's just because we have a section of the track when we agreed before to speak with him."
The scrutiny over the relationship with Adami continued over the course of the season and a deeply frustrating end to the year, as Hamilton endured a run of Q1 exits, likely triggered a winter review and now a change of approach for 2026.
Hamilton was not afraid to make engineering changes already last year, as his former Mercedes performance engineer Luca Diella adopted a similar role on his Ferrari from the Belgian GP just before the summer break.
Speaking about that change at the time, Hamilton said: "It's not easy to switch engineers within the middle of the season, but it's someone that I've known for years [and was] actually from my previous team with me, but not in that position.
"So we're getting used to each other and having to learn super, super quick."
