Lewis Hamilton will likely still have his temporary race engineer Carlo Santi on the pit wall during the Miami GP. After ending the partnership with Riccardo Adami, Ferrari reportedly brought in Cédric Michel-Grosjean from McLaren to work with the seven-time world champion starting from the first Grand Prix in the United States of the year. Now, however, it seems that Hamilton will have to wait even longer for the arrival of the former McLaren employee as his new race engineer.
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During his time at Mercedes, Lewis Hamilton had one of the longest and most successful partnerships ever between a driver and his race engineer. Peter ‘Bono’ Bonnington was his constant on the pit wall from the Briton’s move to the Silver Arrows until Hamilton himself left for Ferrari in 2025. In his debut year for the Scuderia, the collaboration between the seven-time world champion and his race engineer Riccardo Adami was difficult, leading Ferrari to decide to separate the two for 2026.
Carlo Santi took over Adami’s duties as a temporary race engineer for Hamilton. Cédric Michel-Grosjean – who previously worked with Oscar Piastri at McLaren – was then set to become the new permanent fixture on the pit wall for the seven-time world champion after his gardening leave. Reportedly, Grosjean was supposed to take his place on the pit wall for the first time in Miami, but Hamilton now seems to have to wait a little longer for the former McLaren employee. According to PlanetF1, Santi will remain as Hamilton’s race engineer during the first American Grand Prix in Miami, and Ferrari has ‘no fixed timeline’ for the switch from Santi to Grosjean.
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Disadvantageous for Hamilton
Hamilton previously indicated that a change of guard on the pit wall could work to his disadvantage. “It’s actually quite a difficult period because it (the appointment of Santi, ed.) is not a long-term solution,” he told the media. “So early in the season, everything is going to change again and I have to learn to work with someone else again, so that is disadvantageous for me. You want to start a season with people who have already been through several seasons, who have gone through thick and thin and are calm. But this is the situation I have to deal with and I will do my utmost.”
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