The former McLaren man rumored to be Lewis Hamilton’s new race engineer at Ferrari was spotted in the Scuderia’s motorhome on Thursday, ahead of the season-opening Australian Grand Prix. Hamilton parted ways with his 2025 race engineer, Riccardo Adami, ahead of the 2026 season.

On January 16, Ferrari announced that Adami had been moved to another role in the organization. The decision seemed inevitable, considering the severe lack of chemistry between him and the seven-time F1 champion in the latter’s first season with the team last year.

During the preseason tests, Kimi Raikkonen’s former Ferrari engineer, Carlos Senti, replaced Riccardo Adami in the interim. During the time of this announcement, another report from Formula1.it claimed that Ferrari had signed Cedric Michel-Grosjean, who was McLaren’s lead trackside engineer working in Oscar Piastri’s garage, to be Lewis Hamilton’s new race engineer for 2026.

On Thursday, Michel-Grosjean was spotted in the Melbourne paddock in full Ferrari gear inside the team’s motorhome. He was seemingly not meant to be the subject of the photo, as Charles Leclerc was passing by into the motorhome beside him when it was clicked.

A driver-race engineer bond is supposed to be seamless, with the race engineer on top of all in-race technical and telemetry data, freeing the driver to focus on racing on the track without worrying much about peripheral variables. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen in Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari debut season.

Riccardo Adami was often slow to respond to Hamilton’s questions or just silent on a couple of instances. On occasion, Adami’s answers or the delay in their arrival frustrated Hamilton, and that relationship became a low point of his forgettable 2025.

“It’s all in the mind”: Lewis Hamilton ‘won’t lose sight of who he is’ in second year with Ferrari

Lewis Hamilton seemed like a shadow of his former self in 2025. He found it tough to get accustomed to the culture and operations at Ferrari, and the team’s deteriorating performance throughout the season did not help the cause.

He labeled himself “useless” in the second half of the season after suffering successive Q1 knockouts in qualifying. In the same interview, the Briton also suggested that the team should replace him.

However, after an offseason where Hamilton focused on physical and mental training for a comeback in 2026, the seven-time F1 champion has returned rejuvenated. In the FIA press conference on Thursday, Hamilton said:

“The break was really positive. I always talk about cultivating a positive mental attitude, and that is what I have been doing and through training. I have been training hard since Christmas day.”

The Ferrari driver added that he did indeed “lose sight of who he was” in 2025, but assured that we “won’t see that again.”

“I don’t feel this is my 20th year,” added Hamilton. “I feel very fresh. It is all in the mind, and physically I feel great.”

Lewis Hamilton could very well have a successful 2026 season. Ferrari has brought bold developments to its aero, including the radical ‘Macarena’ rear wing, and reportedly also has an advantage when it comes to the new and lengthy procedure for race starts.