Given its surprise yet complete inevitability, is the demotion of Riccardo Adami at Ferrari the first step towards change at Formula 1‘s most historic team, spearheaded by Lewis Hamilton?
Asking Ferrari to change its approach is a bit like asking an old Alfa Romeo not to break down; it is almost beyond the realms of plausibility. But the Catch-22 in this scenario is obvious. An old Alfa breaking is part of its appeal and history, while Ferrari staying its course is built entirely on its legacy of excellence.
But neither can move forward by continuing to operate as is. The Alfa needs new parts to get its patient, yet misguided owner, to its destination, while Ferrari needs to modernise to keep up with modern F1. Both have more in common than they would care to admit.
Change at Ferrari is a rare thing, due to the political boiling point behind the iconic slogan of the prancing horse. History is littered with middle managers who have come and gone due to infighting and ill-advised decision-making. The end of Alain Prost’s tenure in 1991 personifies this perfectly. Fired for daring to criticise the car and the team, those responsible for showing the three-time World Champion the door were themselves fired just weeks later. Changes at Maranello are either glacial or executed as a knee-jerk reaction.
Announced just weeks from pre-season testing, Ferrari has, once again, chosen to act and make changes in the face of criticism and adversity. While Adami’s demotion is not as dramatic, it is still significant. It indicates a team that is beginning to listen to a driver it paid a blockbuster sum to secure, vital given Adami’s poor season. Whether Hamilton was involved is debatable, but this decision felt as inevitable as a harsh British winter extending into spring.
An unusual failure for Adami and Ferrari
Demotion from race engineer to one of the most successful drivers in F1 history to manager of both its Driver Academy and Testing Previous Cars programme is similar to switching your car from a Mercedes E Class to a Dacia Sandero. It’s going to get noticed.
To make this move, Fred Vasseur and the Ferrari board needed to be certain of their convictions. This demotion, when carefully examined, makes complete sense. Rumours of a rift between Hamilton and Adami are not new, first surfacing at the opening race of the season.
Adami is not a stranger to the role of race engineer for successful drivers. In his long history in F1, he has worked as an engineer to the likes of Sebastian Vettel, Daniel Ricciardo and Carlos Sainz. All have unique traits and needs from their race engineer, which Adami has executed well. Hamilton could, and should have been another success story for his roster.
The role of race engineer is one of the sport’s most integral, it is the conduit between driver and team. A solid relationship and trust are vital, as the driver relies on them to deliver updates on strategy, penalties, and their surrounding rivals.
Adami has worked in Italian teams his whole career, excelling in their unique environment. His time at Toro Rosso prepared Vettel and Ricciardo for their time at race-winning teams – no small feat. He mastered acting as the conduit to his drivers, with one race result acting as a turning point for his career.
Monza 2008 saw Adami’s driver, a young Vettel, starting on pole for the first time in atrocious conditions. A baptism of fire for any driver, Vettel relied on Adami’s calm and methodical approach to guide him in the race. The result was a maiden win for both team and driver.
Vettel and Adami stayed together when Vettel jumped ship to Ferrari in 2015. A successful partnership until Vettel’s departure to Aston Martin, Adami then managed Carlos Sainz, taking him to three wins in red.
These are fantastic achievements and demonstrate an engineer who is able to work with championship-winning drivers. These drivers had also worked for Italian teams. Hamilton was a seven-time world champion and came from very different working practices.
A question of communication
Reviewing radio messages between Hamilton and Adami reveals where this alliance disintegrated – communication, or specifically, a lack of. Hamilton demands a very individual style of communication, which he has utilised at McLaren and Mercedes. He can meet his engineer halfway, but this compromise also applies to the engineer.
Listening to radio exchanges between the two, the issues are laid bare. Hamilton asks a specific question, while Adami either gives the wrong information back or ignores it entirely. One could almost see the script he has to studiously follow on the Ferrari pit wall, unable and or unwilling to deviate from it.
Radio silence has also been a major issue. Hamilton’s thank you message in Abu Dhabi was met with nothing whatsoever, Hamilton then calling this out before he got a response. It perfectly summarised the duo’s year together.
The first race in Australia was grim, providing an omen for what was to come. Hamilton asked not for instructions to be repeated, which Adami ignored. A terse exchange took place again later, when Hamilton firmly instructed Adami to leave him alone during battling cars, which again was ignored.
Miami saw another example of miscommunication. Becoming frustrated behind team-mate Charles Leclerc, Hamilton took to the radio to vent, asking the team for a solution. Adami’s response was “I’ll come back to you”. A now angry Hamilton asked Adami if he and the team were having a cup of tea.
Then there was Monaco, the clearest example of Adami ignoring his driver’s request. Hamilton, in fifth, asked how far he was behind the McLarens. Adami responded with their lap times, tyre compounds and that they were battling. Hamilton tried again, stating Adami was not answering the question. At the end of the race, his radio message was met with silence from Adami, despite Hamilton asking if he was angry.
Adami also did not warn his driver of his first track limit violations during the season finale, warranting an angry retort. There are countless other examples of Adami’s unique way of engineering Hamilton across the season.
The duo simply could not communicate and get on the same wavelength. It epitomised the step backwards Ferrari took in 2025: Hamilton asking for change, while Ferrari chose to stay the course, simply hoping through strengths in its conviction that its metaphorical Alfa Romeo electrics would not conk out.
The start of much needed change at Ferrari?
Hamilton spent his first months at Ferrari gathering information, asking questions, pushing to see where the team needed to change. He was met, unsurprisingly, with resistance. Former Team Principal Maurizio Arrivabene revealed Vettel tried a similar tactic and failed.
If Ferrari wants to move forward, it cannot rely on its legacy. Alpine attempted to mask its shortcomings and rebrand itself with a glossy rebrand and paint job in 2021, without changing its politically inept approach to racing. This went as about as well as putting a metal spoon into a power socket.
Ferrari signed Lewis Hamilton as a statement of intent, and has gone on a recruitment drive to gain expertise. But it is still headstrong. Bringing in new people, sponsors, and a blockbuster driver is pointless if the team does not adapt its ways of working.
For many years, Ferrari has operated on a model where it seemingly ignores problems. Its strategy team is the punchline of many a joke, Miami last season the latest example. Instead of moving around personnel or firing them, the Scuderia opts to learn lessons, but not enact them. Following the nadir of strategic errors in 2022, no changes were made to the strategists.
John Elkann, CEO of Ferrari and part of the team that brought in Hamilton, attempted to pin the blame on the team’s decline this year on the drivers. Accusing them of talking too much, he glossed over the issues that have plagued F1’s most famous marque.
But the dramatic removal of Adami hints that the team and board may have at last got the message that things need to change. Adami is a great race engineer, no question. But he personified Ferrari’s inability to change, even in the face of the overwhelming need to. Whether directly or indirectly, Hamilton has sealed his now former race engineer’s fate.
Whether Hamilton’s recommendations to overhaul Ferrari are actioned remains to be seen, but this is a solid first step in the team modernising to how the rest of the grid operates. Legacy and naive hope deliver nothing in F1. The old ways of working have had their time, and their memories will be missed. But a new era is here. Time for the old Alfa to hit the scrap heap.
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