During his 12 years at Mercedes, and through the dynasty he etched with the Silver Arrows bagging six world titles, Lewis Hamilton’s relationship with his former race engineer, Peter ‘Bono’ Bonnington became a classic.
Many even hailed their partnership as the best the sport had ever seen. With Hamilton moving to Ferrari, though, that chapter came to a close, and people eagerly waited to see how he would get on with his new race engineer, Riccardo Adami.
That said, it was a trial by fire for Sebastian Vettel and Carlos Sainz’s former race engineer.
Hamilton wasn’t really comfortable with this new pairing, and lashed out several times at the Italian during their first race together in Australia. But even if it seems like there is a lot of work required between the duo to accommodate each other, an example from Hamilton’s maiden Mercedes season shows that there is no reason why Adami cannot reach Bono’s level.
A thread doing the rounds of X (formerly Twitter) showed the team radio exchanges between Hamilton and Bono from the 2013 season. Just as was the case at the Australian GP, last weekend, the Briton wasn’t too happy with Bono’s race engineering.
Unable to be on the same wavelength, and unhappy with the level of feedback on the radio, the #44 driver asked Bono to “let me drive, man”.
2013 pic.twitter.com/82UmUFfYRi
— sim (@simsgazette) March 17, 2025
Adami was on the receiving end of some similar feedback about his race engineering from Hamilton, however, this time, the seven-time world champion was much cooler in his demeanor.
Ferrari team principal, Frederic Vasseur also acknowledged that the duo needed to get to know each other better. “It was the first race, the first time that we have to communicate between the pit wall and the car, and we can do a better job and know each other more,” he explained as per ESPN.
In F1, the relationship between a driver and a race engineer is crucial to success. That said, it is based fundamentally on trust and affinity which takes time to form between them, and hence, Adami and Hamilton will only get better together as the season progresses.
