F1 legend Lewis Hamilton appears to have finally settled into the swing of things at Ferrari, with an unusual setup that was previously questioned now working in his favour.
The seven-time champion made the move to Maranello for 2025, cutting ties with Mercedes after a highly successful 12-year stint with the Silver Arrows.
But unlike champions before him such as Michael Schumacher, Hamilton chose to go it alone for the monumental team switch, leaving behind his trusty Mercedes race engineer Peter (Bono) Bonnington.
Instead, Bono has taken on the challenge of working with Hamilton’s replacement, Kimi Antonelli, a partnership that clearly works well considering the young Italian currently leads the drivers’ championship by 43 points.
On Hamilton’s side of the garage over at the Scuderia, things didn’t go as smoothly as they would have hoped.
For his maiden campaign in red, Hamilton teamed up with Riccardo Adami, but after multiple tense team radio exchanges, team principal Fred Vasseur stepped in to switch things up for 2026.
Who is Lewis Hamilton’s F1 race engineer?
When news of Adami’s exit from Hamilton’s side of the garage broke, many within the sport expressed relief at the 41-year-old’s chance to make the most of a fresh start in 2026.
With a new race engineer coming onboard just in time for the regulations overhaul however, this was a risky move and one that was plagued by instability as the Scuderia admitted they hadn’t landed on a full-time replacement for Hamilton’s race engineer just weeks before pre-season testing.
After the Italian F1 team opted to take the silent approach regarding an announcement over the British racer’s new ally, it was then confirmed that Carlo Santi, Kimi Raikkonen’s former race engineer, would be stepping into the role on an interim basis.
Rumours continued to swirl around the potential hiring of Cedric Michel-Grosjean, a performance engineer who left McLaren last December and was described as being ‘Ferrari-bound’ in the media.
Now, Italian media have reported the Scuderia are in no rush to promote Michel-Grosjean into his first race engineer role, with the unorthodox approach to having both he and Santi helping Hamilton appearing to have be working positively.
Ferrari’s race engineer experiment works like a charm
Vasseur’s squad were slammed during pre-season testing and across the opening races of the 2026 championship due to the confusing and potentially chaotic setup of having a mid-season race engineer swap.
However, whatever they are doing is working for the 105-time grand prix winner who just picked up his best result with Ferrari in a full-time race at last weekend’s Canadian GP.
Hamilton secured P2 with Santi guiding him through the 68-lap race, earning his second podium of the year after only five rounds.
Following the event in Montreal, Hamilton was quoted as praising his relationship with both Santi and Michel-Grosjean, with the duo forming somewhat of a dream team for the champion who was so lost at the Scuderia last season.
“While waiting to resolve the difficulties of connecting with the factory, Hamilton is enjoying his best race result since joining Ferrari, dedicating special thanks to Carlo Santi, who has joined him from Australia as his new race engineer: ‘He’s absolutely fantastic, I really enjoy working with him,’” a report from La Gazzetta dello Sport read.
“And while Santi’s presence ‘in the headset’ was intended to be only temporary, it seems there’s no rush at Maranello to promote new arrival Cedric Michel-Grosjean from McLaren, who Hamilton nonetheless praises: ‘He helped me a lot to get more performance out of the car. We made some changes to the setup, and I was able to attack all the corners as I wanted.’”
