At the start of the 2026 Formula 1 season, Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton has a new stand-in race engineer, the seasoned Carlo Santi. This change is a temporary arrangement as Hamilton awaits the arrival of a permanent race engineer for the ongoing campaign, a shift that directly impacts Hamilton’s efforts this season.
Carlo Santi, born in February 1954 in Verona, Italy, holds extensive experience within Ferrari’s motorsport division. After completing his mechanical engineering studies at Milan Polytechnic with a focus on land vehicles, he took up a scholarship project at the Fiat Research Centre in Turin. From there, he moved to Ferrari’s vehicle dynamics department, marking the beginning of a long association with the Scuderia.
Santi’s initial motorsport role came five years later when he joined Ferrari’s endurance racing team as a performance engineer. His transition into Formula 1 began as a model engineer working on Ferrari’s original driver-in-the-loop simulator, setting the foundation for his future responsibilities in race engineering.
Though largely unknown outside racing circles for years, Santi gained prominence as the performance engineer for 2007 World Champion Kimi Räikkönen during the Finnish driver’s second tenure at Ferrari. Following that, after two seasons as Räikkönen’s performance engineer in 2016 and 2017, Santi took over as his race engineer for the 2018 season.
Carlo Santi’s Contributions to Kimi Räikkönen’s Final Ferrari Season
The 2018 season was significant for both Räikkönen and Santi, marking Räikkönen’s last year with Ferrari. The Finn secured third in the drivers’ championship behind world champion Lewis Hamilton and teammate Sebastian Vettel, with 12 podium finishes across 21 races.
Notably, Räikkönen achieved his final Formula 1 victory at the United States Grand Prix in Austin, Texas, joined on the podium by Santi. After Räikkönen’s departure, Ferrari promoted Charles Leclerc in 2019, leaving Santi to shift into a factory-based position, where he supported race operations from Ferrari’s remote garage in Maranello rather than trackside.
On his role as a factory-based performance engineer in 2025, Santi explained on Ferrari’s official website:
“We can provide live support and even act as a back-up for the performance engineers at the track. This can be for routine matters or for critical ones that can arise during an event.”
He added,
“As a general rule, in the remote garage we tend to focus on the medium to long-term activities that involve several departments, whereas at the track, the main focus is on strictly operational aspects.”
Santi continued,
“Fifteen years on [from my first role at Ferrari], after working across driving simulation, vehicle dynamics, race engineering and vehicle performance, I’m still here, suffering when things don’t go well and rejoicing after every win.”
Understanding the Shift in Hamilton’s Race Engineering Team for 2026
Ferrari’s decision to appoint Carlo Santi as Hamilton’s temporary race engineer comes amid a period of instability on Hamilton’s side of the pit wall. In his debut season at Ferrari in 2025, Hamilton was paired with Riccardo Adami, who previously race-engineered for drivers such as Sebastian Vettel and Carlos Sainz.
The 2025 campaign was challenging for Hamilton, marked by the absence of a single podium finish, the worst result of his Formula 1 career. Additionally, tensions ran high between Hamilton and Adami, with public instances of frustration over team decisions aired during races.
For example, at the Miami Grand Prix, Hamilton suggested on team radio that the pit wall should
“have a tea break while you’re at it”
amid indecision over team orders. Later, after the Monaco Grand Prix, Hamilton sarcastically asked Adami on the cooldown lap:
“Are you upset with me or something?”
However, Adami did not respond, reportedly having disconnected from the team radio system.
Ferrari formally announced on January 16 that Hamilton would receive a new race engineer for the 2026 season after Adami was reassigned within the team. He now focuses on Ferrari’s junior driver programme and the Testing of Previous Car (TPC) operations.
This announcement came less than two weeks before the first pre-season test in Bahrain, prompting Ferrari to install Carlo Santi in a temporary race engineer role to bridge the gap. Reports have since suggested Cedric Michel-Grosjean as Hamilton’s intended permanent race engineer. Michel-Grosjean previously served as Oscar Piastri’s trackside performance engineer at McLaren but left the team at the end of 2025.
Duration of Santi’s Role and Hamilton’s Outlook for the Season
It remains uncertain how long Carlo Santi will remain Hamilton’s race engineer during the 2026 season. However, Hamilton confirmed during the second pre-season test in Bahrain that his race engineer position would change again after a few races, implying that Santi’s role is indeed short-term.
Hamilton acknowledged the difficulties of this transitional period, expressing concern about the potential negative impact on his championship hopes. Reflecting on his parting with Adami, he said:
“With Riccardo, it’s obviously a very difficult decision to make. I’m really grateful for all the effort he put in last year and his patience. It was a difficult year for us all.”
He added that working with a temporary engineer at the start of the season is challenging:
“It’s actually quite a difficult period because it’s not long term. The solution that I currently have, it’s only going to be a few races. So early on into the season, it’s going to be switching up again and I’ll have to learn someone to work with someone new, so that’s detrimental to me too.”
Hamilton highlighted the importance of stability in a race engineering relationship, especially after long collaboration through highs and lows:
“A season where you want to arrive with people that have done multiple seasons, that have been through thick and thin and are calm. But it is the situation that I’m faced with and I’ll try and do the best I can.”
On Ferrari’s efforts to ease this disruption, Hamilton remarked,
“I think the team is trying to do the best they can to help make it as seamless as possible.”
Details concerning the exact timing of Michel-Grosjean’s arrival at Ferrari remain unclear. According to his LinkedIn profile, Michel-Grosjean is currently on a career break before starting his next role, leaving question marks over when Hamilton will receive a permanent race engineer again.
