Although Ferrari is yet to confirm Lewis Hamilton’s race engineer for the upcoming season, it has recently emerged that Ricardo Adami will pair up with the seven-time F1 champion.
Lewis Hamilton announced his shock departure from Mercedes on the 1st of February. The announcement caught the Formula One community by surprise, as the seven-time world champion was set to race for the Brackley-based outfit until the end of 2025.
However, an exit clause in his contract allowed Hamilton to leave the team in 2025 if he wished, and the Briton elected to terminate his contract at the end of the current season and seek for a new challenge at Ferrari next year.
Hamilton is statistically the most successful driver in the history of Formula One, tied with the great German seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher on the number of world championship titles.
After the announcement, it had been suggested that Hamilton might persuade his long-time race engineer Peter Bonnington to accompany hi to Ferrari, but the British engineer ultimately expanded his contract at Mercedes.
Bonnington, often known as Bono, started his Formula 1 career as a data engineer with Jordan Grand Prix in 2004.
During his time with the Silverstone team he worked alongside the likes of Giorgio Pantano and Timo Glock. He then joined the Honda team as an understudy to long time race engineer Andrew Shovlin and therefore became Jenson Button’s performance engineer. Bonnington remained with the team as it transitioned into Brawn GP, guiding Button to his maiden World Championship in 2009.
After a stint as Michael Schumacher’s performance engineer at Mercedes, he became his race engineer replacing the departing Mark Slade in September 2011. After Schumacher left the Brackley team at the end of 2012, Bonnington became senior race engineer for Lewis Hamilton, a position he retains to this day.
It has recently emerged that Bonnington has moved up to head of race engineering but will remain as Hamilton’s race engineer for the remainder of the season.
Speaking to the media at Zandvoort, Hamilton reflected on his race engineers during his F1 career.
“The team often [decides] for you. I’ve had two number ones in my career. That’s not true actually; I’ve had Philip Prew, I’ve had Andy Lacombe, and I’ve had one other.
“When I joined this team, I just came in and Bono was the current head engineer at the time. It’s got to be someone you get on with, it’s got to be someone that you ultimately are able to find it easy to build a relationship with and trust.”
Hamilton admitted he would have love to continue to work with Bonnington, but it would have been a very tough decision for the British engineers for personal reasons.
“I would have loved to have continued with Bono, of course. We have a great relationship. You heard in Silverstone, he’s like a brother. But I’m really, really, really happy for him,” Hamilton said.
“Like for me, it’s just about people doing what’s best, you have to do whatever’s best for you. Packing up and leaving, I can only imagine it’s not, him and his partner, it impacts both of them, so they have to do whatever’s right for him.
“I knew it would be like an unlikely scenario that he would go with me, because it’s such a drastic change within his life. But I’m really happy the team have acknowledged and made changes to this pathway within the team so he can grow more with it.
“I think he’ll now be able to show even more of the great things that he’s been doing. But either way, we’re going to be family forever. We’ve spoken about it. We just want to make sure we finish on a high.”
Adami expected to team up with Hamilton
It has now emerged that Ferrari has already made the decision to partner Hamilton with Riccardo Adami as the seven-time world champion makes his switch from Mercedes to Ferrari.
Adami obtained a diploma in chassis area at the University of Brescia in 2001 and he joined Minardi in the following year. He worked in several positions throughout the years before ultimately being promoted as the race engineer in 2005.
The Italian remained with the Faenza-based squad after the team was acquired by the Austrian energy drink maker Red Bull and renamed as Scuderia Toro Rosso at the end of 2005. During his years working in the Italian team, he served as race engineer for several drivers, including Vitantonio Liuzzi, Sebastian Vettel, Sébastien Buemi and Daniel Ricciardo.
In 2015, Adami elected to leave Toro Rosso in a bid to move to Ferrari, working as Vettel’s race engineer once again. After Vettel’s departure from the Scuderia, Adami teamed up with Carlos Sainz, and he is now expected to continue his work at Ferrari in the same position, but now with Hamilton.
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