Hamilton admits race engineer change as detrimental, will have another one
Lewis Hamilton reveals the current race engineer situation is a temporary fix, as he notes the pros and cons after early running of F1 2026 car.
Ahead of the testing, Ferrari informed a change of race engineer of Hamilton for the 2026 F1 season. They moved Riccardo Adami to driver academy and TPC role, but didn’t inform his replacement. It is unclear, who was part of the clan in Barcelona, but a name has popped up for Bahrain test.
Carlo Santi, who is the ex-race engineer of Kimi Raikkonen, has been slotted in the role. But it is a temporary fix as per Hamilton, as he will get a new one in early part of the F1 2026 season. The Brit spoke about the change as detrimental when speaking to media in Bahrain.
He highlighted the challenge to gel with a person in testing and then again gel with another new person when the F1 season starts. “That relationship is so important, isn’t it? It is,” said Hamilton to media. “Firstly, with Riccardo, it was obviously a very difficult decision to make. I’m really grateful for all the effort he put in last year and his patience. It was a difficult year for us all.
“It’s actually quite a difficult period because it’s not long-term, the solution that we currently have. It’s only going to be a few races. Early on into the season, it’s going to be switching up again and I’ll have to learn to work with someone new. That’s detrimental for me too. A season where you want to arrive with people that have done multiple seasons that have been through thick and thin and calm.
“It is the situation that I’m faced with and I’ll try to do the best I can. The team is trying to do the best they can to help make it as seamless as possible,” summed up Hamilton, who had a difficult morning session on Day 1 of Bahrain test, when he had multiple moments due to lack of grip and balance in the SF-26 on a dusty track.
He felt low downforce levels readily from the previous generation of cars. He has had fun so far driving the smaller and lighter car, but isn’t certain if it suits his style after troubles in the last generation of cars. It is still early days and the windy conditions certainly didn’t help his case.
He noted the cars to be slow to begin with, almost at GP2 pace. “I think it’s just too early days to really say,” started Hamilton. “I mean, the general new car is obviously a lot less downforce. Barcelona didn’t feel too bad. In Bahrain, it’s been very gusty and it’s a lot hotter. So it’s much harder to find the right balance. But I think everyone’s struggling with it.
“Oh, front, rear, yeah, it’s a lot less, a lot less downforce. So it’s, yeah, it’s actually the car’s shorter. It’s lighter. It’s actually easier to catch. So it’s quite fun. It’s like rallying a lot. Yeah, I think we’re slower than GP2 right now, right? Yeah, I mean, it does feel like that. I think right at the moment it doesn’t feel anything like the genre before. And it’s really just too far, too early days.
“ We’ve just, with the baseline car that we have, we’re still trying to, we’re testing lots of different things. We’re still trying to find the window that it likes to work in. Haven’t optimised the tyres, haven’t optimised the aero package yet. The ride height, the mechanical balance, all these different things. So I can’t, I’m not going to judge it just now.
“It didn’t feel great out there with the wind [on Day 1]. It was very, very gusty here. The gustiest I can remember it being here. So we just have to take it with a pinch of salt. Plus it’s the first day here, which is in the morning, it’s never fun. But in general, as I said in the last test, it’s a more fun car to drive,” summed up Hamilton.
Here’s what they said after Day 1 in Bahrain