Ferrari targeting former McLaren engineer for Hamilton role

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Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari future is once again under the spotlight, with reports suggesting the seven-time world champion could soon be paired with a former McLaren engineer as the Scuderia works to find the perfect match for the Briton.

Now entering his second season in red, Hamilton is set to work with a new race engineer after Ferrari confirmed that Riccardo Adami – who worked alongside Hamilton in 2025 – has been reassigned to a role within the team’s Driver Academy.

Speculation is now rife following reports from Corriere dello Sport that Ferrari is "waiting for a new figure to come, it seems, from McLaren."

The mystery recruit – rumored in the paddock to be former McLaren lead trackside performance engineer Cedric Michel-Grosjean – would step into the high-pressure role of Hamilton’s race engineer.

The move signals a desire for a "clean sheet" approach for Hamilton’s 2026 campaign. While the search for Adami’s successor is well underway, Charles Leclerc’s current engineer Bryan Bozzi has been pulling double duty, overseeing both cars during the Fiorano shakedown and into the Barcelona tests.

While internal candidates like performance engineer Luca Diella remain in the frame, the "French connection" at Ferrari is growing. But the belief within the paddock is that Hamilton will be closely consulted before any permanent appointment is made.

Croft: Pressure Rises as Ferrari Reshuffle

Sky Sports F1 commentator David Croft believes the engineer change places extra scrutiny on Hamilton, even as Ferrari work to put the right structure around him.

“It has not come as a surprise whatsoever,” Croft told The F1 Show. “That wasn’t a relationship that was going anywhere in a positive way.

“It’s difficult isn’t it? You throw people together and hope that it works. Good companies, good managers, they find a way to integrate people into teams. Bad managers find a way not to integrate people properly and sadly in this respect it didn’t work out.

“But this heaps the pressure on Lewis, it really does. He is more than good enough to cope with that pressure. He’s more than good enough to come through and I hope will feel comforted by the fact he will have an engineer that he has a better relationship with.

“I’m pretty certain there’s somebody already at Ferrari who will step into a new role and move up and that Lewis will have known from years before.”

With Hamilton now fully embedded at Ferrari and the team already planning beyond the current season, the choice of race engineer is shaping up as a defining decision – one that could influence how effectively the most successful driver in F1 history can extract performance from Maranello’s next generation of cars.

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Phillip van Osten

Motor racing was a backdrop from the outset in Phillip van Osten's life. Born in Southern California, Phillip grew up with the sights and sounds of fast cars thanks to his father, Dick van Osten, an editor and writer for Auto Speed and Sport and Motor Trend. Phillip's passion for racing grew even more when his family moved to Europe and he became acquainted with the extraordinary world of Grand Prix racing. He was an early contributor to the monthly French F1i Magazine, often providing a historic or business perspective on Formula 1's affairs. In 2012, he co-authored along with fellow journalist Pierre Van Vliet the English-language adaptation of a limited edition book devoted to the great Belgian driver Jacky Ickx. He also authored "The American Legacy in Formula 1", a book which recounts the trials and tribulations of American drivers in Grand Prix racing. Phillip is also a commentator for Belgian broadcaster Be.TV for the US Indycar series.