Lewis Hamilton 'better match' hope raised as critical Ferrari wait goes on

Anthony Davidson has explained his hope that Lewis Hamilton will be able to "gel" and enjoy a "better match" with his as-yet unnamed 2026 Ferrari race engineer.

Following his move from Mercedes for 2025, Hamilton was paired with Ferrari veteran Riccardo Adami, who had engineered Sebastian Vettel and Carlos Sainz after long-time Mercedes engineer Peter Bonnington stayed and was promoted to a more senior role. 

However, Hamilton and Adami struggled to overcome their teething troubles, with cracks even appearing during the Abu Dhabi season finale, with Adami removed from his position in early January, and was re-assigned to a role in the test and young driver programmes.

Adami's replacement has still not been named, just one week prior to the start of the 2026 season, with Hamilton working with Carlo Santi through testing.

Santi was previously Kimi Raikkonen's engineer during the 2018 season, in which he guided the 2007 world champion to his final career victory in the United States GP. 

Whilst a permanent engineer is found for Hamilton, Santi will work with the seven-time champion through the early races of the season, with former F1 racer and 2014 World Endurance Champion Davidson expressing his surprise that such a "special relationship" with Adami's permanent replacement had not been allowed to begin during testing.

"It’s such a special relationship that you need with your race engineer, and you have to bounce off each other," Davidson exclusively told RacingNews365. 

"I’m really surprised and intrigued that he hasn’t been working with whoever it is going to end up being.

He hasn’t had a chance to actually gel. You need that chemistry. We saw and heard that it didn’t work last year.

"I hope for his sake, and whoever the new engineer will be, I hope it’s a better match."

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