2026 Scuderia Ferrari HP F1 Team

[edu2703]

I always find it curious how F1 fans always want to point to a single hero if the car is good, and a single villain if the car is bad, as if someone in any F1 team had dictatorial power to decide every aspect of the car and the other engineers just had to silently accept their orders.

I always see this phenomenon with Adrian Newey. Many people see him as a "magician" who, by simply hiring him, will give the team a championship-winning car, as if Newey designed every single screw of the car alone. The truth is that Newey had, throughout his career, a competent team of engineers who had the skills to apply his bold concepts to the car. Basically, Newey gives a direction, a concept, and the engineers from the various departments need to have the technical competence to transform that concept into reality.

Just hiring Newey and keeping the same incompetent engineers responsible for previous failures is not enough for a team to be champion in F1. In 2026, the most likely outcome is that Red Bull, without Newey but still retaining a good portion of its excellent technical staff, will have a strong car to fight for the championship, depending on the engine. Meanwhile, Aston Martin, with Newey in charge, will remain a midfield team, as the changes at AM won't necessarily translate into a championship-contender car in the first year already.

The concept for Ferrari's 2025 car was already decided before Serra arrived. Serra had no involvement in that and simply had to work with what the technical staff had already decided. The SF-25 wasn't a direct result of Serra's work.

[venkyhere]

Glad to see that specific engineers are exclusively discussed, not just the drivers and TPs. The engineers are the backbone of the team and just because they aren't appearing for media bytes, they don't get the importance they deserve. Happy to see atleast F1 technical calling their importance.

Regarding the conversation about Hamilton v/s Adami , while I agree that Adami still hasn't 'adapted' to an englishman, a celebrity englishman to boot, what I don't find mention is the number of times Hamilton himself has goofed up, and not just in complicated situations, but bare basic simple goofs.
For example the decision to run with used softs (after the aborted lap on fresh softs due to LeClerc's brief yellow flag at T1) in Azerbaijan Q2. He knew he was struggling for pace and others were massively improving, and yet still decided to make his 2nd run on the scrubbed tyres. Why ?
What about not knowing the difference between start/stop line and timing line and then abandoning his final lap when he saw the gantry red lights (as his engineer was asking him to push madly to cross the line) in LasVegas ? He could have completed his lap comfortably. This is a guy with 18-19 yrs of experience.
I find it particularly amusing that 'race engineer is bad' conversations never mention the goof ups by the driver. We only get to hear 'come on man, where am I slow' team radios in the broadcast (which is carefully filtered by the editors, and with an agenda to project that Hamilton is disadvantaged by his race engineer) , and rarely get to hear whenever Adami is actually forthcoming with information (we can hear this if we select the 'driver onboard view' of the broadcast). It's a difference in cultures, and BOTH have to make efforts to bridge the gap. I don't like Adami in particular (right from Sainz days) because his 'tone' is never reassuring, just the words are ; but nevertheless, I think he gets blamed too much for Hamilton's struggles. The simple fact is, for an 18-19 yr experienced racer, Hamilton is very poor 'adapting' to a different driving style that the car demands. He can't stop doing 'brake as late as possible, with combined steering'. That was half of the problem in 2025, not just the bad/inconsistent car being the other half.

[aMessageToCharlie]

Regarding the conversation about Hamilton v/s Adami , while I agree that Adami still hasn't 'adapted' to an englishman, a celebrity englishman to boot, what I don't find mention is the number of times Hamilton himself has goofed up, and not just in complicated situations, but bare basic simple goofs.
[...]
I find it particularly amusing that 'race engineer is bad' conversations never mention the goof ups by the driver.

That's because it's a straw man argument, redirecting the attention from the original point.
I completely agree with you in regards to the driver mistakes btw but that doesn't change the "fact" that the race engineers (plural) are amonst the worst on the grid.

Please compare Bozzi and Adami to a Laura Müller and GP and tell me with a straight face that you see no difference.

It baffles me that some people seem to not understand the concept of a "quick win" or think that this is some kind of a token system where you only get to fix one issue.

There is work to be done in other areas, too but that doesn't invalidate the original point.

[sucof]

Some wild takes in here the last few days.

The LEC and HAM engineers are absolutely not the problem. Espcially Bozzi but even HAM has had some dumb takes on the radio like asking Adami to not confirm his messages.. like wtf, even reddit was defending Adami on that one.

Strategy has been top notch since Vasseur, understanding of the tires during the race was a huge weakness before and became a strength in 2024+ (see Monza victory 2024). Pits have been flawless. There has been some serious clown shows from certain cars winning races in the past year.

On the leadership side they seem weaker, I may even agree with that, but attributing that to Loic Serra and his 3 months work on a suspension is just weird, he wasn’t even supposed to touch the 2025 car.

Either due to budget or other reasons at the end of 2024 they decided to not fully validate their ideas on the new floor and that doomed their 2025 season, it’s still unknown what happened in 2025 though, we speculated it was suspension related and rigidity of it, but the suspension might have had nothing to do with it, except for an attempt to fix it. Clearly the problem was at minimum also the floor.

And you can’t compare this to 2014, the changes in this year are much bigger than in 2014, huge changes in chassis, aero and engine all at once unlike 2014 which was really mostly and engine change and the reason people couldn’t catch up quickly then was the development tokens, even if you knew exactly what to do, you couldn’t do it.

I agree.
People here are too quick to judge, too negative, and to be honest do not step back enough.
I see a team which in the recent years was always able to produce a car that was challenging the top team.
At some points they had the fastest car, they even lead the championship, or were strong second.
If you just put these info out of context, then you would say, this is promising, and such a team could easily come up with a solid top car this year.
Ferrari were second best for about half of last year, with a car that had probably one fault, and which they stopped developing very early.
Such a team is good and capable.
And no one knows what will happen this year, but they certainly took more time and energy to develop for this year than many other teams.
So please stop this short sighted emotional bashing of the team. They get such bad treatment from the Italian media all year anyways.
Focus on, how amazing time we have in front of us, how many different cars and solutions we will see, how many interesting changes there are not only on the technical but on the human side of this sport.
Enjoy the competition, stay positive

[Badger]

The engineer always looks bad when the team and driver can’t live up to their own expectations. Adami was essentially a nanny this past season, tasked with keeping Hamilton happy whilst being asked to do strategic miracles by his fans.

[SiLo]

The engineer always looks bad when the team and driver can’t live up to their own expectations. Adami was essentially a nanny this past season, tasked with keeping Hamilton happy whilst being asked to do strategic miracles by his fans.

Ironically the weakest part of Hamiltons game is mental, but it's also his strongest. If hes not in the mood hes grumpy. Bono used to be really good at managing this and it's something Hamilton and Adami need to work on together.

[Mosin123]

The engineer always looks bad when the team and driver can’t live up to their own expectations. Adami was essentially a nanny this past season, tasked with keeping Hamilton happy whilst being asked to do strategic miracles by his fans.

I dont know, Seemed to me like some times LH asked a questions, some times no reply would ever follow, he would ask for information, and Adami would tell him some thing completely off subject and not even give a reply to what LH asked, that is a big big big big big big big big difference to how other engineers communicate with their driver , It has rightly been pointed out in the media because well, The communication is miles off. Its almost like they hate each other.

Some times LH just got flat out ignored and he is asking if he had done some thing wrong on the radio like a little boy who has upset his girlfriend............... That is far far far from being professional.

[dialtone]

The engineer always looks bad when the team and driver can’t live up to their own expectations. Adami was essentially a nanny this past season, tasked with keeping Hamilton happy whilst being asked to do strategic miracles by his fans.

I dont know, Seemed to me like some times LH asked a questions, some times no reply would ever follow, he would ask for information, and Adami would tell him some thing completely off subject and not even give a reply to what LH asked, that is a big big big big big big big big difference to how other engineers communicate with their driver , It has rightly been pointed out in the media because well, The communication is miles off. Its almost like they hate each other.

Some times LH just got flat out ignored and he is asking if he had done some thing wrong on the radio like a little boy who has upset his girlfriend............... That is far far far from being professional.

Again, in the last races he literally asked Adami to stop acknowledging his comments and that they had talked about it.

What are we talking about? That they are not on the same page is obvious, that Adami will be replaced rather than HAM if they don’t improve is also obvious. But that this is just Adami’s fault or that’s the reason why ham had a bad season, lmao come on.

[ScuderiaLeo]

That's because it's a straw man argument, redirecting the attention from the original point.
I completely agree with you in regards to the driver mistakes btw but that doesn't change the "fact" that the race engineers (plural) are amonst the worst on the grid.

Please compare Bozzi and Adami to a Laura Müller and GP and tell me with a straight face that you see no difference.

It baffles me that some people seem to not understand the concept of a "quick win" or think that this is some kind of a token system where you only get to fix one issue.

There is work to be done in other areas, too but that doesn't invalidate the original point.

The chances of someone like Muller, Bono or GP coming to Ferrari is in the negatives. Ferrari need to make do with what they have available to them. There may be better race engineers on other teams but Ferrari's aren't so bad that they're costing them wins (in fact Bozzi was an integral part of Leclerc's success in 2024. It's very disingenuous to me to group him and Adami together when Bozzi and Leclerc have great communication normally.) Perhaps there's a better option for Hamilton in Ferrari that we don't know of which is a fair point, but again, Hamilton agreed he wanted to keep working with Adami. Vasseur said outright they would change race engineers if Hamilton wanted, but from what we know so far, they are not. At some point, we need to accept this is a joint decision by both the team and the driver.

[AR3-GP]

I dont know, Seemed to me like some times LH asked a questions, some times no reply would ever follow, he would ask for information, and Adami would tell him some thing completely off subject and not even give a reply to what LH asked, that is a big big big big big big big big difference to how other engineers communicate with their driver , It has rightly been pointed out in the media because well, The communication is miles off. Its almost like they hate each other.

Some times LH just got flat out ignored and he is asking if he had done some thing wrong on the radio like a little boy who has upset his girlfriend............... That is far far far from being professional.

Hamilton is one of the most challenging drivers to work with. That's why Adami is having such a difficult time. What works one weekend, will get your head bitten off in the next weekend.

A good example would be comparing Monaco and Abu Dhabi.

Monaco:

Hamilton: What do you need from me?
Adami: And push now, this is our race. Overcut Hadjar, Hadjar lap time 16.0. Engine braking two. Gap to Verstappen, 6.3 ahead. Verstappen lap time 15.1. Pace is good.

Post-race:

Lewis Hamilton addresses Adami's "push now this is our race" message :
"The data wasn't exactly that clear. I didn't understand the 'this is our race' thing.""I didn't know what I was fighting for. Am I fighting for the next spot ahead, or..?

Abu Dhabi:

L43
Adami: Racing Bortoleto Ahead
Hamilton: Stop telling me I'm racing people, I know I'm racing them man, Just leave me to it. I'm racing everyone ahead of me.

L45
Hamilton: Whoever's ahead of me just went off in turn 1
Adami: Ok, reporting
hamilton: I don't need you to...don't confirm please! Just telling you
Adami: Understood
Hamilton: Stop confirming!

In Monaco Adami was berated for not giving enough information. In Abu Dhabi, Adami was berated for giving too much information. It's hard to develop a consistent communication strategy with a driver who seems so unpredictable.

Emphasis on "seems", because after a while you can decode it. When Hamilton is in a good mood, then leave him alone and he's capable of figuring his races out. If he is in a bad mood, then he requires spoon feeding because he checks out mentally. It explains the differences between Monaco, Abu Dhabi, and other races in his past. He was having a terrible weekend in Monaco so he checked out and needed to be spoon-fed. He was having an encouraging race in Abu Dhabi, so he didn't want much instruction. Bono became very attuned to Hamilton's many moods, so he knew the right approach most of the time.

These driver-engineer relationships are not 1-sided so you can't just drag and drop other race engineers into the role alongside Hamilton. Take away 1 element and even the best engineer looks like a fool. We know that because Adami was highly regarded alongside Sainz and Vettel, and now he looks like a fool with Hamilton. GP and Laura Muller would also look like fools here.

The challenge for a new race engineer is discovering the things that I have written. Once that is done, working with Hamilton is much easier.

[edu2703]

The problem with analyzing the performance of the drivers' engineers is that the analysis is never done comprehensively, analyzing conversations from all races from beginning to end. The analysis is always based only on 3-4 controversial phrases or moments that FOM carefully selects to show in the broadcast for entertainment purposes, to label the engineer as mediocre and ignore the conversations from the other 20 races, which were absolutely normal and professional.

If Hamilton felt that Adami lacked the competence to manage his races, he would have insisted on a change to someone else, which didn't happen. Ferrari decided, together with Hamilton, to keep Adami, and that alone should put an end to this whole discussion.

As already mentioned, when it's a bad year, there's always the desperation of some to point the finger at a single culprit. If Hamilton's year had been excellent with several wins, I seriously doubt we would even be discussing Adami here. Reading some comments, it even seems like Adami prevented Hamilton from winning in some race.

[PDR]

Hi to All and Happy New Year!
Do we have any news regarding progress of new single seater and engine?
Last year was really bad considering how 2024 ended.
How is the climate in the factory?

[Xyz22]

Hi to All and Happy New Year!
Do we have any news regarding progress of new single seater and engine?
Last year was really bad considering how 2024 ended.
How is the climate in the factory?

No news for now (which is probably a good thing).
Factories are reopening these days after holiday break so we should start getting some news in the coming days. As usual, the only good source is more or less only Autoracer. Having said that, even them have absolutely no clue about the actual performance of the car.

[aMessageToCharlie]

We know that because Adami was highly regarded alongside Sainz and Vettel, and now he looks like a fool with Hamilton.

Adami was never "highly regarded" unless this is reddit slang for something else, then I agree.

I don't know what seasons you have watched, but Adami was already the running joke working with (or against) Vettel and the same with Sainz, who had to do all the thinking from the cockpit.

You might want to watch some of these highlights on youtube to refresh your memory.

Anyways, I'm done arguing. What do I care if they want to keep doing what they're doing and getting the results they're getting.

Let's hope they can come up with a monster of a car to compensate because I want to see Leclerc fighting for wins and championships.

[sucof]

We know that because Adami was highly regarded alongside Sainz and Vettel, and now he looks like a fool with Hamilton.

Adami was never "highly regarded" unless this is reddit slang for something else, then I agree.

I don't know what seasons you have watched, but Adami was already the running joke working with (or against) Vettel and the same with Sainz, who had to do all the thinking from the cockpit.

You might want to watch some of these highlights on youtube to refresh your memory.

Anyways, I'm done arguing. What do I care if they want to keep doing what they're doing and getting the results they're getting.

Let's hope they can come up with a monster of a car to compensate because I want to see Leclerc fighting for wins and championships.

You guys this is funny... you think an engineer is to be judged by the communication during the race???
Their work is mostly other things, than to chat on the radio....
Things you do not see or hear about. But you judge them by some selected unfortunate radio coms by the F1 broadcast...
Come on!!!
Also, most great engineers are not the best in talking, reading feelings, etc. These are not HR people or movie directors to be awesome in chatting...