Lewis Hamilton says he has found his "Italian Bono" at Ferrari in new race engineer Carlo Santi.
Ferrari veteran Santi stepped up on an initial temporary basis to be Hamilton's race engineer for 2026 as Riccardo Adami was reassigned elsewhere within the team after a difficult first season for Hamilton, in which he failed to score a grand prix podium for the team.
Adami had worked with Sebastian Vettel and Carlos Sainz, but he could not re-capture the relationship Hamilton enjoyed with Peter Bonnington at Mercedes, with whom he won 83 of his 84 Mercedes races - Bonnington having missed the 2019 Mexican Grand Prix - and all six of his world titles at Brackley.
It is the most successful driver-engineer relationship of all-time.
After Adami was removed ahead of 2026, Hamilton was assigned to work with Santi - who was Kimi Raikkonen's former race engineer, and worked with the Finn when he claimed his final grand prix victory in 2018 in the United States - sharing the podium with Hamilton, who finished third.
Reflecting on his work with Santi, Hamilton described the Italian as an "OG" and as his "Italian Bono."
"Last year, Adami and I had a really good relationship, and he was a lovely guy," Hamilton told media, including RacingNews365.
"We worked actually relatively well together. I think catering to a driver's needs, it takes time to learn when you're giving an engineer feedback: their understanding of through-corner balance, their understanding of all the elements that contribute to the struggles; you try to describe what it is, the problem you have, corner by corner, entry, middle, and exit.
"You dissect it into five sections, if you want, and having that driver engineer, sometimes it is hit and miss.
"With Bono, it was hit off from the beginning. Mostly, he had a good working relationship with Michael [Schumacher], and I do feel like Carlos is like my Italian Bono.
"I told Bono that the other day, and [Santi] is a bit of an OG; he feels like he's an older guy who's been all around the block and is very calm.
"You can hear on the radio, but this is the detail that we're able to go into together with our understanding of the engineering side."
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