Lewis Hamilton has revealed that he is seeking to “find an Italian word” to replace his famous ‘hammer time’ radio messages ahead of his Formula 1 debut with Ferrari.
The message was often relayed to him by his race engineer at Mercedes, Peter Bonnington, to encourage the seven-time champion to push at a key moment in a race.
The phrase became a synonymous aspect of Hamilton’s long-serving relationship with Bonnington, who he affectionately dubbed ‘Bono’.
But the Briton has hinted that he will have to discover a new word or term to convey the same instruction with his Ferrari engineer Riccardo Adami.
“I haven’t spoken to my engineer about that,” Hamilton said.
“I don’t know how it would sound with an Italian accent, so I’ll have to find an Italian word, probably. We’ll probably find something new.”
Hamilton reveals notes to follow Italian engineers
Hamilton – like Ferrari’s last two British drivers, Eddie Irvine and Nigel Mansell – has been learning Italian as he builds his working relationship with the Maranello-based squad.
The newfound language barrier and the change to a new team – after 12 seasons with Mercedes – has given Hamilton a fresh task of deciphering technical jargon in a new language.
But showing a lack of deterrence to this particular issue, Hamilton revealed how he has been compensating so far.
“The effect is slightly different and the names they have are different,” he said. “’Anti-roll bar’ is still ‘anti-roll bar’.
“Some of the other parts of the geometry, there are different words for it.
“I’ve got it on my computer and I’m studying it each day and night to make sure I understand when they talk about these different components.
“I’ve done 12 years in another place where we talked about the same thing all the time.
“So I was used to it, I knew exactly what they were meaning. “But every time they [Ferrari] mention [something] in a debrief I’m like: ‘What part is this? Okay, it’s this part.’
“It’s part of the learning process and that’s what makes it exciting, because it’s all new.”
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Tempo Pepperoni