Ferrari reacts to Hamilton's 'detrimental' verdict on early-season change
Ferrari team boss Frederic Vasseur believes a single race engineer change is not extraordinary in Formula 1.
After Riccardo Adami was meant to continue as Lewis Hamilton's race engineer for the 2026 season as well, it was announced that the Italian would take on a different role within the team.
Earlier this week, Hamilton addressed the situation in Bahrain. The Briton explained that he will not have a permanent race engineer by Melbourne. "It's only going to be a few races, so early on into the season, it's going to all be switching up again and I'll have to learn to work with someone new. So that's detrimental to me too."
Vasseur sees positive steps so far
Asked about the seven-time world champion's comments, Vasseur explained to GPblog: "It's not exactly the discussion that we have. I think the collaboration between the team and Lewis and the pit wall is very good.
"I saw Lewis, it's not that he was not committed, but was confident and very open to the relationship. My feeling is very positive about this. We will continue to improve.
"The mindset is to try to do a better job tomorrow than today. If we have areas where we can improve, we will continue to push in this direction. But Lewis was in a very good mindset on this one."
When asked a separate question, the Frenchman added: "Please stopped with this story. You have 22 cars in the paddock. You have about six or seven new engineers each year, and the same with team principals. I'm probably the oldest one with Toto (Wolff). You change three, four team principals each year, and it's not the end of the team.
"A team today is something like 1,500 people. It's not about one race engineer. The guy that you see on the pit wall is leading a team of X people working on the car."- Frederic Vasseur
"A team today is something like 1,500 people. It's not about one race engineer. The guy that you see on the pit wall is leading a team of X people working on the car. And it's not a matter of an individual. F1, it's always about the team. It's never about individual," he concluded.
Hamilton ended up setting the third quickest time during the first pre-season test week in Bahrain. Recap the best lap from each driver here!
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