Ferrari Plots to Make Major Change to Lewis Hamilton’s Team After Embarrassing 2025 Season

Ferrari's Fred Vasseur has revealed that the team is looking into options to replace Lewis Hamilton's race engineer Ricciardo Adami.

Ferrari Plots to Make Major Change to Lewis Hamilton’s Team After Embarrassing 2025 Season

Lewis Hamilton and Fred Vasseur (via Reuters)

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Lewis Hamilton struggled in his Ferrari debut season in more ways than one. The performance wasn’t the only shortcoming in his first year with Maranello. The 40-year-old even clashed on the team radio with his race engineer, Ricciardo Adami.

Though Adami helped Carlos Sainz achieve a handful of wins at the Italian squad, Hamilton was unable to extract maximum benefit from the former. As such, Ferrari is reportedly planning to change the seven-time champion’s entourage with the new regulations.

Following the culmination of the 2025 season, Fred Vasseur confirmed that the team was looking at options to change Lewis Hamilton‘s race engineer. Hamilton was involved in a verbal argument with Ricciardo Adami on a couple of occasions last year. The Briton was visibly frustrated by the conversations with Adami and thus suffered from further performance issues.

As such, Lewis Hamilton would surely want to have changes in his entourage to make sure that he could maximize his results under the new regulations. Speaking on how to help Hamilton rediscover himself and start performing better, Fred Vasseur reckoned that they must tackle each point. The Frenchman continued that the 40-year-old’s problem was a matter of mindset and understanding.

Fred Vasseur highlighted that for Charles Leclerc, the team was aware of his needs and thus worked with him better than Lewis Hamilton. However, for Hamilton, the team must understand exactly what the former needs and wants. Even for Vasseur, he wants to understand what the seven-time champion would like to do in terms of achieving a comeback in performance.

We have to tackle each point, and honestly, it’s also a matter of mindset, a matter of understanding each other… I’m speaking about one side of the garage, in this case, because with Charles, we know each other, But in this [Hamilton’s] case, it’s more to understand exactly what he needs, what he wants, and for him — the same for me — to understand exactly what he would like to do.

Fred Vasseur said, as reported by RacingNews365.

Lewis Hamilton couldn’t perform at Ferrari because of the ‘huge change’

Lewis Hamilton raced for Mercedes for over 12 years before joining Ferrari in the 2025 season. Even before that, he was racing for McLaren ever since his F1 debut. As such, the Briton had great experience racing with Mercedes’ power units.

Lewis Hamilton (via F1)
Lewis Hamilton (via F1)

However, joining Ferrari meant that he was faced with a completely new environment, even with the engines. Hence, Fred Vasseur reckoned that the difficulties were probably because of the huge change.

Fred Vasseur noted that saying that Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari debut was difficult was a small word. This was because of his partnership with Mercedes for over two decades.

Vasseur accepted that he underestimated the step and how much of a leap it would be, even for the seven-time champion. However, the team principal highlighted that Ferrari wasn’t performing better or worse; rather, it was just a different experience.

I think it was difficult for Lewis, and it’s a small word, probably, that it was difficult, Because after 20 years with Mercedes — I say 20 years, because for me, McLaren was McLaren-Mercedes and then [he was with] Mercedes — it was a huge change. I personally underestimated the step. It’s not that we are doing things worse or better. It’s that we are just doing things differently.

Fred Vassuer noted.

The 2025 season is now in the past, and so are Lewis Hamilton’s intense struggles at Ferrari. The Briton will work hard over the off-season and hopes to emerge as a much more dominant force under the new regulations. Though none of the teams seem to be the clear favorite, Maranello will still hope to give it their all and perform much better than in the 2025 season.

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