Ferrari confirm Hamilton to follow in Vettel footsteps as new era begins

Ferrari has confirmed Lewis Hamilton will work with race engineer Ricciardo Adami following the seven-time F1 champion’s opening day at the wheel of a scarlet machine.

As part of an intense build-up to his debut with Ferrari in the Australian Grand Prix in mid-March, Hamilton sampled the 2023 car, the SF-23, at the Scuderia’s Fiorano test track at Maranello.

Taking to a damp circuit in foggy conditions, Hamilton completed 30 laps, the equivalent of 89 kilometres.

It was a vital introduction to Ferrari’s ways of working, and in particular to getting to know Adami, who was previously race engineer to four-time champion Sebastian Vettel.

After years of working at Mercedes with Pete Bonnington, who helped coin phrases such as ‘Get in there Lewis!’, and ‘Okay Lewis, it’s hammer time!’, Hamilton will now have to develop a close relationship with Adami, who previously worked with Carlos Sainz.

In an end-of-day press release, Ferrari stated that after Hamilton completed an installation lap, “the Englishman stayed in the car, speaking to his race engineer Riccardo Adami over the radio”.

It is the first time Ferrari has officially made public Hamilton’s race engineer, and the voice millions of F1 fans around the world will hear talking to the 40-year-old over the radio this coming season.