F1 | When the engineer doesn’t understand you: the real problem for Lewis Hamilton at Ferrari
The relationship between a Formula 1 driver and their race engineer is one of the most delicate and decisive factors in the sport. It is an intricate balance built on trust, shared language, instinct, and mutual understanding. Driver-engineer pairings like Max Verstappen and Gianpiero Lambiase or Lando Norris and Tom Joseph illustrate just how competitive this bond can become when perfectly aligned.
For Lewis Hamilton, however, the connection with Riccardo Adami never fully materialized, to the point that Ferrari decided to separate the two. This situation brings attention to a topic that is often invisible but fundamentally important: the human relationship behind performance.
Effective communication: timing and content matter as much as talent
It is possible to pair the most talented driver in the world with the most brilliant engineer in the paddock, but if they cannot communicate effectively, success remains out of reach. This is not a matter of language, but of precision, timing, and the ability to translate sensations into actionable information.
A driver must be able to describe the car’s behavior in a way the engineer can interpret, while the engineer must explain setup philosophy and race strategy clearly and in a manner calibrated to the moment.
The “when” is just as critical as the “what.” There are moments when a driver needs a technical detail, moments when a word of encouragement is crucial, and moments when silence is the most effective choice.
It is in these situations that the best engineers shine—those who have lived races themselves. They can read the driver, understand their mood, and anticipate reactions. In the case of Lewis Hamilton and Riccardo Adami, however, something broke down. They often seemed out of sync, as if one did not know what the other needed to hear—or not hear.
Understanding the driver: an art that goes beyond data
Formula 1 is a sport dominated by numbers, but there are moments when data alone is insufficient. Even the most experienced engineers can get lost in a maze of sensors and graphs when the car does not behave as expected.
It is in these moments that instinct comes into play—instinct born from experience and careful attention to the driver. Some engineers, when everything seems off-track, close their laptops, look the driver in the eyes, and make decisions based on what they feel rather than what the data shows. And often, this works.
However, instinct alone is not enough without mutual trust. The relationship must work in both directions: the driver must trust that the engineer can improve the car, while the engineer must trust that the driver can read the car better than any sensor or telemetry.
Sometimes the data tells one story while the driver reports another. True trust is built in these moments. When an engineer agrees to try a modification requested by the driver—even if the numbers do not support it—and when the driver proves to be correct, trust deepens. The same happens in reverse. In both cases, the party that “loses” the argument gains an extra reason to trust the other.
The fragile balance behind every successful F1 performance
The driver-engineer relationship is a fragile equilibrium composed of communication, understanding, instinct, and mutual confidence. It is a bond that can either amplify talent or limit it, turning a difficult weekend into a triumph—or causing a race to collapse.
Lewis Hamilton and Riccardo Adami never found the deep harmony that defines winning pairings. In a world where every detail counts, even a single voice in the headset can mean the difference between feeling isolated and feeling invincible.
The dissolution of the Hamilton-Adami partnership therefore shows that even a seven-time world champion is reliant on the psychological and communicative synergy found within the garage. As Ferrari looks to restructure Lewis’s support system, the focus will inevitably shift toward finding an engineer who speaks his specific “language” of racing. In the high-pressure environment of Maranello, the ability to turn data into a shared intuition is often the final piece of the puzzle required to return to the top of the podium.
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