No shake-up in Miami: Ferrari stick with Santi for Hamilton

There will be no shakeup in the Ferrari garage when F1 returns to the track in Miami next month, with the Scuderia sticking to its guns, and with Lewis Hamilton’s pit wall will remain a zone of continuity – at least for now.

Carlo Santi, a veteran of the Italian outfit who once guided Kimi Räikkönen, is set to keep his headset on as Hamilton’s race engineer for the upcoming Florida showdown according to multiple reports.

Hamilton’s engineering carousel has spun fast. After the departure of Riccardo Adami early in the year, the search for a permanent voice in Lewis’s ear led to former McLaren man Cedric Michel-Grosjean.

But while the Frenchman has been integrated into the team since Melbourne, he hasn't yet taken the reins. Instead, Santi remains the man on the "radio check," providing a sense of stability while the team and Hamilton navigate this transitional phase.

Hamilton: Caught between stability and change

Hamilton’s frustration with the situation is unmistakable. Speaking during pre-season testing, the seven-time world champion didn’t sugarcoat the challenge of building chemistry on shifting ground.

“Firstly, with Riccardo it was a pretty difficult decision to make, and I’m really, really grateful for all the effort he put in last year, and his patience – it was a difficult year for us all,” the 41-year-old explained.

“It’s actually quite a difficult era, because it’s not long-term, the solution that I currently have – it’s only a few races, and so early on into the season it’s going to all be switching up again and I’ll have to learn to work with someone new.

“So that’s detrimental for me too, [going into] a season where you want to arrive with people that have done multiple seasons, that have been through thick and thin, and I can’t.

“But it is the situation that I’m faced with, and I’ll try and do the best that I can. The team is trying to do the best they can to make it as seamless as possible.”

For now, Ferrari’s gamble is simple: stability over speculation. In a season already dancing on a knife edge, Miami won’t bring another change – just more pressure.

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