Lewis Hamilton responds to Ferrari’s ‘detrimental’ decision that could scupper Formula 1 season

Lewis Hamilton has labelled Ferrari’s decision to switch his race engineer during the new Formula 1 season as ‘detrimental’.

The F1 icon has been very open in admitting that his time at Ferrari so far has been terrible – and it may be set to continue.

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With the 2026 season getting started on March 8, excitement is building for the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne.

But that excitement doesn’t seem to be there for Hamilton, who has expressed his worries at pre-season testing in Bahrain.

Following a poor year, during which he failed to finish on the podium at all for the first time in his career, he split with Riccardo Adami.

Adami was Hamilton’s first race engineer at Ferrari, but after the split, Carlo Santi stepped in to work with him instead.

Santi is only taking the role on an interim basis though, with Hamilton confirming his team’s inconvenient plan.

“It’s actually quite a difficult period because it’s not long-term,” he said on Wednesday about his race engineer. “The solution that we currently have…it’s only going to be a few races.

“So, early on into the season, it’s going to be switching up again, and I’ll have to learn to work with someone new.

“So that’s detrimental to a season where you want to arrive with people that have done multiple seasons, have been through thick and thin and are calm.

“But it is the situation that I’m faced with and I’ll try to do the best that I can.

“The team is trying to do the best they can to make it as seamless as possible.”

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‘A very difficult decision’

Hamilton also discussed the change from his former race engineer, Adami, who has taken up a different role at Ferrari.

“With Riccardo, it was obviously a very difficult decision to make,” he admitted in Bahrain.

“I’m really, really grateful for all the effort he put in last year and his patience in what was a difficult year for us all.”

Santi will now be working with Hamilton in pre-season testing and they will start the new season together.

But Ferrari haven’t confirmed who will then be taking over from him as Adami’s long-term replacement.

Hamilton will be driving his 2026 Ferrari twice this week as part of testing, with the F1 season opener just a few weeks away.

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What else has Hamilton said?

This season in Formula One, there are some changes to the rulebook, and every car will run with 50-50 hybrid power units.

It means energy use in the car will be a crucial part of each race, with communication between driver and engineer key.

Hamilton explained how he’s been feeling in his new car in Bahrain so far, saying: “I think right at the moment it doesn’t feel anything like the genre before, and it’s really just too early days.

“With the baseline car that we have, we’re still trying to test lots of different things, we’re still trying to find the window that it likes to work in, we haven’t optimised the tyres, we haven’t optimised the aero package yet, the ride height, the mechanical balance, all these different things, so I’m not going to judge it just now.

“It didn’t feel great out there today with the wind, it was very, very gusty, the gustiest I can remember it being here.

“We just had to take it with a pinch of salt, plus it’s the first day here, which in the morning is never fun. But in general, as I said at the last test, it’s a more fun car to drive.”