Ferrari have removed Riccardo Adami as Lewis Hamilton’s race engineer, just one week before the team launch their 2026 car. Adami, who previously worked with Sebastian Vettel and Carlos Sainz at the Scuderia, has been moved to a role within Ferrari’s Driver Academy and their Testing of Previous Cars programme.
The decision comes after Hamilton and Adami struggled to gel during the Briton’s first year at Ferrari. Miscommunication between the pair was frequently heard over team radio throughout race weekends, and Hamilton failed to register a podium finish in 2025.
Italian outlet La Gazzetta dello Sport reports that Hamilton’s current performance engineer, Luca Diella, is the frontrunner to replace Adami. Ferrari declined to comment when approached by The Independent. Diella joined Ferrari last year, having previously worked in Hamilton’s camp at Mercedes. He started at Mercedes in 2019 as a performance engineer before moving into Hamilton’s garage in 2021, serving as the power unit performance engineer for four seasons. He then joined Ferrari ahead of the 2025 season as a race engineer for the test team, before moving to Hamilton’s garage before last year’s Belgian Grand Prix.
The situation mirrors that of Hamilton’s teammate Charles Leclerc, who grew frustrated with his former race engineer Xavi Marcos in 2024. Marcos was replaced by performance engineer Bryan Bozzi, who has since moved to Cadillac. A similar promotion for Diella could be on the cards just seven weeks before the season-opening Australian Grand Prix.
It is highly unlikely that Hamilton’s former race engineer at Mercedes, Peter ‘Bono’ Bonnington, will follow him to Ferrari. Bonnington received a promotion at Mercedes last year and now works as race engineer for Kimi Antonelli. Ferrari will reveal their 2026 livery on Friday, 23 January, with pre-season testing in Barcelona next week before the first race in Melbourne on 8 March.
