After making the move from Mercedes to Ferrari, Lewis Hamilton has found himself working with Riccardo Adami as his new race engineer.

But, despite both Hamilton and Adami serving as veterans of the F1 scene, the start of their partnership left some communication issues to resolve, the Monaco Grand Prix in particular characterised by confusion and silence. Let us take a deeper look into Ricciardo Adami’s story, and why his path has crossed with Hamilton’s F1 journey.

Who is Riccardo Adami?

Riccardo Adami is a 51-year-old Formula 1 engineer who hails from Brescia, Italy.

Formerly of Minardi and Toro Rosso, Adami went on to join Ferrari as a race engineer, where as part of that role, he now works with seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton, who arrived at Ferrari from Mercedes in 2025.

Adami’s entire and extensive Formula 1 career has played out within Italian teams.

How long has he been at Ferrari?

Riccardo Adami has been a part of the Ferrari team for a decade, having joined in 2015.

A graduate of the University of Brescia in 2001 with a diploma in chassis area, Adami joined the much-loved F1 backmarker team Minardi in 2002, and by 2005, had been promoted to the role of race engineer.

Adami remained with the team into its Toro Rosso era after Minardi were purchased and rebranded by Red Bull, where he continued to serve as a race engineer, working with Red Bull’s future stars until he became a Ferrari race engineer in 2015.

It is a post that he continues to hold to this day, now working with Hamilton, and has become a highly-experienced and respected figure within Ferrari.

Who else has Riccardo Adami been race engineer for?

At Toro Rosso, Adami worked with Red Bull’s four-time World Champion-to-be Sebastian Vettel, playing a key role in guiding his early development ahead of a reunion for driver and race engineer at Ferrari from 2015-2020.

Adami also served as race engineer for Daniel Ricciardo at Toro Rosso, the Australian racer going on to win seven grands prix with the senior Red Bull team.

The theme of working with race winners to come continued for Adami as he linked up with Carlos Sainz as his Ferrari race engineer, the Spaniard replacing Vettel from 2021 and winning four grands prix with Adami in his ear.

Ferrari opted not to renew Sainz’s contract in order to bring Hamilton – statistically Formula 1’s most successful driver – into the team for 2025, with Adami remaining in place for the transition from race engineering Sainz to doing so for Hamilton.

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Why didn’t Peter Bonnington go to Ferrari with Lewis Hamilton?

Hamilton announced his future Ferrari move a year in advance, so questions soon bubbled up over whether his storied association with long-time race engineer Peter ‘Bono’ Bonnington would continue at the Scuderia.

Hamilton and Bono became an iconic driver and race engineer combination, working together for Hamilton’s entire Mercedes career from 2013-2024, and introducing the famous ‘Hammer Time’ call from Bono to Hamilton, basically a command to his driver that now was the time to push.

However, ‘Bono’ did not follow Hamilton to Ferrari, with PlanetF1.com exclusively revealing back in August 2024 that Bonnington had instead opted to accept a promotion to Mercedes’ new Head of Engineering and would be the guiding voice for Hamilton’s replacement, Kimi Antonelli.

And with that, a union which guided Hamilton to six of his seven World Championships, met its end.

Why don’t Adami and Hamilton seem to be getting on?

It has not been a smooth start to Ferrari life in general for Hamilton with results falling below his expectations, but a key subplot to have emerged is the tension – as it appears from the outside – between Hamilton and Adami.

Prickly radio discussions between the pair often made headlines in the early rounds of F1 2025, though by Imola, it appeared as though a corner had been turned, Hamilton declaring that “Riccardo did a fantastic job with his communication with me” when speaking to Sky Italia after his drive to P4.

However, by the following weekend in Monaco, things took a turn for the worse, and perhaps to the greatest extreme yet, as Hamilton misinterpreted Adami’s message that “this is our race”, Hamilton after the chequered flag expressing confusion over what his race engineer meant ahead of his first of two mandatory pit-stops.

Hamilton also took issue with Adami’s failure to answer his question on whether the cars ahead of him were still a minute clear, at the first time of asking.

Furthermore, Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur was forced post-race to address an untelevised radio message from Hamilton, where it had appeared as though Adami blanked Hamilton when he asked: “Are you upset with me?”

Something just does not appear to be clicking for Hamilton and Adami and it could feasibly be the language barrier. While Adami can speak English – as shown on team radio where it is mandated – he has always worked with an Italian team as previously mentioned, so how much exposure he has had to the English language, and thus how much he has been able to learn, could be a sticking point.

Hamilton had made his efforts to learn Italian clear ahead of starting the season with Ferrari, but with the lack of a recent update, or insight into which language Hamilton and Adami best communicate with behind the scenes, it cannot be ruled out that there is something of a language barrier between them, something which Hamilton obviously did not have with fellow Brit Bonnington.

Hamilton also acknowledged the unique culture which he was walking into at Ferrari, one unlike anything he experienced before, so perhaps some cultural differences are, at this stage, behind the tense moments between he and Adami.

Or, we could just be looking at a relationship still in its early phases and yet to fully bed-in. We are only a third of the way through F1 2025 and that is not exactly a huge amount of time for Hamilton and Adami to have spent working together in the heat of battle.

How has Charles Leclerc’s radio been this season?

At Ferrari, Hamilton finds himself up against a veteran racer of the team, with F1 2025 marking Charles Leclerc’s seventh season as a Ferrari driver.

Yet, Leclerc’s season has not been absent of angsty exchanges or misfires with his race engineer Bryan Bozzi.

Like Hamilton, Leclerc has also been left frustrated as McLaren scamper away up the road with back-to-back Constructors’ titles looking almost certain for the Woking team, and amid a bitter low on home soil for Ferrari at Imola, Leclerc unleashed on his team over a strategy miscommunication.

Stating his desire to pit for soft tyres, and told Hamilton did not want to, the subsequent clearance for Leclerc to box – only to see Hamilton peel off into the pits ahead and force him to abandon the plan – left Leclerc utterly confused, as he was told “now we have to stay out.”

And – while this one was a lot more light-hearted – Bozzi and Leclerc produced a team radio moment which went viral in Australia, as Leclerc reporting that his seat was “full of water” in the rain-impacted race drew an “it must be the water then,” response from Bozzi.

“Words of wisdom” was where Leclerc playfully said he would file that one.

So, perhaps it is not a Hamilton and Adami thing, but rather radio miscommunications indicative of a turbulent campaign thus far for Ferrari.

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