Lewis Hamilton affected by major change as Ferrari take action ahead of Miami Grand Prix | F1 | Sport

Lewis Hamilton will have a new race engineer at the Miami Grand Prix in the latest change to his support team at Ferrari. Last season, the 41-year-old worked with Riccardo Adami but their dynamic was often tense and there were several instances of miscommunication. During the winter break, it was reported that Ferrari would be making personnel changes and Adami was moved to a different role.

Carlo Santi took over as Hamilton’s race engineer for the first three races of the 2026 season in Australia, China and Japan. He wasn’t a permanent solution, though, only filling the role as Ferrari hunted a longer-term successor. They have now appointed Cedric Michel-Grosjean, who will take over from the Miami Grand Prix onwards.

Michel-Grosjean has been following Hamilton’s race process closely since the start of the season, in a bid to understand what has been working on the communication front.

He has also gained a valuable insight into how the British driver processes information during practice, qualifying and races.

Michel-Grosjean will need to consider many important factors including the delivery of data, how much detail to provide, and how to adapt communication during high-pressure moments.

It remains to be seen whether his relationship with Hamilton will prove successful as Ferrari look to build on their promising start to the 2026 campaign.

A strong driver-engineer partnership has historically been central to Hamilton’s success. While at Mercedes, he won several world titles working alongside Peter Bonnington, who is now Kimi Antonelli’s race engineer.

Reflecting on their successful dynamic in 2023, Hamilton said: “I’m incredibly grateful for Bono. I’ve had an amazing journey with him.

“I think we’ve got one of the longest, if not the longest-standing driver-engineer partnerships that there’s been, and he’s been hugely integral to my success.

“We’ve had an amazing journey together, we’ve supported each other on and off-track, through good and bad times, and I love working with Bono. He’s like a brother to me, a brother from another mother.

“I think he’s probably one of the few people that can truly stand me, I would say, on the good and bad days, and how calm he’s able to be throughout a race, and how he’s able to help guide and help me navigate through a race.”

Bonnington, or Bono, became known for the ‘hammertime’ catchphrase he often used when asking Hamilton to push with maximum effort.

“I think I came up with hammertime,” added Hamilton. “I think because there was a point where he was like: Now it’s time to push’, and I got frustrated with it because I’m like: ‘Dude, I’m already pushing!’

“But I was like: ‘If you’re trying to signify that now’s the time to go all out, use everything you have, just tell me it’s hammertime’. That was part of the growth we had.”

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