Former Formulation 1 driver and Sky Sports activities F1 analyst Karun Chandhok has raised considerations about Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari race engineer modifications.
The seven-time champion is presently working with an interim race engineer throughout personal testing for the 2026 F1 season after Ferrari confirmed earlier in January that his 2025 race engineer, Riccardo Adami, would transfer to a different position.
Hamilton joined the Maranello outfit forward of the 2025 season. Whereas he celebrated a dash race victory in China, he failed to complete on the rostrum for a grand prix in his first 12 months with the workforce. Along with the struggles in adapting to the brand new squad, the British driver did not appear to click on with Adami, with quite a few moments of annoyance between the 2 being aired reside to viewers.
Ferrari is but to substantiate who will step into Adami’s position for 2026 and the delay on this has rung alarm bells for Chandhok.
“The opposite factor that’s ringing alarm bells for me is his engineer scenario,” Chandhok instructed Sky Sports activities F1.
“So far as we perceive, Bryan Bozzi, who’s Charles Leclerc’s race engineer, was working the automotive [on Tuesday], together with for Lewis. That confuses me, if I’m completely sincere. That relationship between driver and race engineer is so, so vital.
“Getting the suggestions from the driving force, in my expertise, an excellent engineer-driver relationship are the unstated issues. When one is complaining about one thing, the opposite is ready to end their sentence and say ‘we will do that’.”
He added: “They haven’t created a scenario the place Lewis is constructing that relationship over the winter.
“I’d have liked to see him do simulator days [or] go and get a TPC automotive and bond with a brand new race engineer. It’s worthwhile to combine that particular person into the engineering set-up of the race workforce. They should work in an setting together with the opposite engineers when the driving force is just not round.
“The general public hear the driver-engineer dialogue, however that’s only a microcosm of the larger conversations taking place in that engineering workplace. To me, I’m barely confused that as we sit right here, we’ve already began testing, that bonding and relationship-building hasn’t began, off the again of a season which was not good.”
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