Lewis Hamilton’s struggles at the Belgian Grand Prix continued as he failed to make it out of Q1 in qualifying, with his engineer Riccardo Adami coming in for criticism

Lewis Hamilton’s relationship with Riccardo Adami has come under scrutiny(Image: Formula 1 via Getty Images)

Ferrari engineer Riccardo Adami has faced criticism for his approach towards Lewis Hamilton. It came as the Brit suffered a torrid weekend at the Belgian Grand Prix, which included two Q1 exits in both qualifying sessions held at the Formula 1 Sprint event at Circuit Spa-Francorchamps.

Following a disappointing 15th-place finish in Saturday’s sprint race, matters worsened for the seven-time F1 champion when he encountered difficulties during qualifying. Hamilton set a rapid lap in Q1, but his time was subsequently scrubbed from the records.

He received a penalty for breaching track limits at the Raidillon corner, meaning he failed to progress to Q2. This left him just 16th on the timesheets before Ferrari confirmed hours before Sunday’s race that Hamilton would start from the pit lane.

Speaking over the radio, race engineer Adami seemed to display little compassion in the aftermath. When Hamilton enquired airwaves: “Is everything okay?” following his qualifying attempt, he received a curt response. “Track limits at turn four,” came the blunt reply.

After Hamilton questioned whether this meant he had been eliminated from Q1, the Italian responded: “Yeah. Lap time is deleted. P16.” Sky Sports F1 reporter Ted Kravitz highlighted Adami’s approach to that conversation as he discussed what had happened on his Ted’s Notebook programme.

He suggested that Hamilton’s previous engineer at Mercedes, Peter Bonnington, would have managed the situation with greater sensitivity. ‘Bono’ worked with the Brit for more than a decade and the pair had a strong rapport, which is something Hamilton has yet to find with Adami.

“Did you think it was a bit terse on the radio between him and Riccardo Adami, saying, ‘Is there something wrong?” Kravitz said. “I don’t know whether I expected a bit more empathy. To say, ‘Ah, I’m sorry, Lewis. Bad luck, mate. You’re out, hard one by, pal.’ The kind of things Bono would have said.”

Hamilton, 40, made no effort to hide his frustration afterwards, offering an apology to both his team and supporters as his difficult 2025 campaign rolls on. I’m just really sorry to the team,” he said. “Hard work with the filming day that we did, and all the preparation, and then you come here and don’t make it through Q1. It’s unacceptable. Really sorry.”

It is far from the first time the relationship between Hamilton and Adami has been questioned since his move to Ferrari. There were several examples of tense conversations between them over the radio earlier in the season which caused so much of a stir that the racer felt the need to speak publicly about how he is working with his new race engineer.

He said: “We’re constantly learning more and more about each other, we’re constantly adapting to the way both of us like to work. There’s a lot of speculation. I mean, most of it is BS. Ultimately, we have a great relationship. He’s been amazing to work with, he’s a great guy, working so hard – we both are – and we don’t always get it right every weekend. We have disagreements, like everyone does in relationships, but we work through them.”