Lewis Hamilton has described reaction to his radio exchanges with new Ferrari race engineer Riccardo Adami in the Australian Grand Prix as being “overegged”.
Hamilton experienced a difficult first race weekend with his new team in Melbourne finishing 10th, with Ferrari unexpectedly off the pace after a more promising showing with their 2025 car during pre-season testing.
And it was the seven-time champion’s radio communications with Adami that came in for much post-race focus amid discussion about what information Hamilton wanted in the car from the Italian engineer, and when.
But Hamilton told reporters at the Chinese GP on Thursday: “I mean, naturally, everyone overegged. It was literally just a back-and-forth.
“I was very polite in how I had suggested it. I said: ‘leave it to me, please’.
I wasn’t saying ‘F you’. I wasn’t swearing. So it was just at that point, I was really struggling with the car and I needed full focus on these couple of things.
“We’re getting to know each other. He’s obviously had two champions or more in the past and there’s no issues between us still.”
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Listen in on the radio messages from Lewis Hamilton’s first race with Ferrari throughout the Australian Grand Prix
Hamilton drew a pointed comparison with the driver-engineer exchanges seen elsewhere in the sport, including Red Bull rival Max Verstappen’s with his engineer Gianpiero Lambiase.
“Go and listen to the radio calls with others and their engineers, far worse,” he said.
“But unfortunately, you [the media] make… the conversation that Max has with an engineer over the years, the abuse that the poor guy’s taken and you never write about it, but you wrote about the smallest little discussion I had with mine.”
Verstappen’s sometimes spiky and tense radio communications with Lambiase did come in for particular focus at the Belgian GP in 2023 after the world champion ranted about the team’s execution of qualifying.
Speaking in his TV interviews on Thursday, Hamilton added about his messages with Adami: “I don’t know why everyone’s been so negative about it. I was polite. I always said ‘please’ at the end.
“When you look at some of the other drivers who have been super vocal, almost abusive, their engineers have taken batterings for years, and mine didn’t even take a battering.
“There are a couple of individuals that were quite rude on how we spoke. It’s something you learn along the way. From race to race, we’re going to get stronger together, and that’s the most important part.”
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As the Chinese Grand Prix hosts the first of the six Sprints this season, Simon Lazenby explains why this format is so crucial
Hamilton, who had spent the previous 12 years working with Peter ‘Bono’ Bonnington at Mercedes to hugely-successful effect, said he and Adami were simply going through the normal process of acclimatisation to a new working relationship.
“Ultimately, we’re literally just getting to know each other,” he added.
“So afterwards I’m like: ‘hey bro, I don’t need that bit of information but if you want to give me this, this is the place I’d like to do it’. This is how I’m feeling in the car and, at these points, this is when I do and don’t need the information’.
“That’s what it’s about. There are no issues, it’s done with a smiley face and we move forwards.”
He added: “Every driver requires different information. George [Russell], for example liked a lot of information.
“For me, I don’t like a lot. It can sometimes be overbearing and overloading. But, the relationship between Bono and I took years for us to learn each other. Bit by bit, trial and error, you try different things along the way, and eventually you gel. And Ricky and I get on super well.
“That was our first race together, the first time he was having to throw those balls into the cockpit. We dealt with 90 plus per cent of those totally fine.”
More to follow…
Sky Sports F1’s live Chinese GP schedule
Friday March 21
- 1am: F1 Academy Practice
- 3am: Chinese GP Practice One (session starts at 3.30am)*
- 5.30am: Team Principals’ Press Conference
- 6am: F1 Academy Qualifying*
- 6.45am: Chinese GP Sprint Qualifying (session starts at 7.30am)*
Saturday March 22
- 2.25am: Chinese GP Sprint build-up*
- 3am: Chinese GP Sprint*
- 5.45am: F1 Academy Race 1*
- 6.35am: Chinese GP Qualifying build-up*
- 7am: CHINESE GP QUALIFYING*
- 9am: Ted’s Qualifying Notebook*
Sunday March 23
- 2.40am: F1 Academy Race 2
- 5.30am: Chinese GP build-up: Grand Prix Sunday*
- 7am: THE CHINESE GRAND PRIX*
- 9am: Chinese GP reaction: Chequered flag*
- 10am: Ted’s Notebook*
*Also on Sky Sports Main Event
Formula 1 is in Shanghai this week for the first Sprint weekend of the season at the Chinese GP, live on Sky Sports F1. Stream Sky Sports with NOW – No contract, cancel anytime
