Lewis Hamilton reveals ‘detrimental’ Ferrari plan – three weeks before 2026 F1 season

Lewis Hamilton admits plans to hire a new race engineer are “detrimental” to the start of his F1 season with just three weeks until the first race in Australia.

After a tumultuous first year at Ferrari, Hamilton opted to ditch race engineer Riccardo Adami last month, with the pair regularly clashing on team radio amid a 2025 campaign where the Briton, for the first time in his 19-year career, failed to register a podium.

It is understood that Hamilton is keen to hire Cedric Michel-Grosjean, formerly Oscar Piastri’s performance engineer at McLaren, yet the Frenchman must serve his notice period after leaving the team at the end of 2025.

In the interim, which could extend to the first few races of the 2026 campaign, Hamilton will work with Ferrari’s head of remote engineering, Carlo Santi, who previously worked as Kimi Raikkonen’s race engineer at the team in 2018. Yet at the start of a new regulations cycle, it is a sub-optimal situation for the seven-time world champion to deal with.

Speaking on day one of the second pre-season test in Bahrain, where Hamilton worked with Santi on the pit-wall, the 41-year-old acknowledged: "It's actually quite a difficult period because it's not long-term, 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.

"With Riccardo, it was obviously a very difficult decision to make. 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."

Hamilton has also challenged the FIA, F1’s governing body, to “take care” of the sport’s engine controversy, amid the row breaking out between Mercedes and the four other power unit manufacturers.

“I hope we are in the mix (this season),” he said. “Apart from Mercedes, we all look like we are quite close, but we don’t know what fuel loads everyone is on.

“There are whispers of certain fuel loads that Mercedes are on. There are whispers of extra power that they have that the rest of us don’t have. And the compression ratio sort of thing.

“Hopefully that gets sorted and the FIA take care of that to make sure we are all starting on an equal playing field."

The 2026 season, Hamilton’s 20th consecutive year in the sport, starts with the Australian Grand Prix on 8 March.