Montoya lashes out at Riccardo Adami and suggests Hamilton to consider a race engineer swap

20:49, 02 Jun

Updated: 20:50, 02 Jun

byTobia Elia

Juan Pablo Montoya has urged Lewis Hamilton to change his race engineer after the many misunderstandings that have emerged with Riccardo Adami since the start of the season.

The beginning of the partnership between Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari has proven, at least so far, to be a surprisingly underwhelming disappointment. In all nine races contested thus far, the seven-time world champion has struggled to showcase the qualities that over the years have cemented his status as a true legend of the sport.

His only standout performance came in China, where the Brit managed to claim a prestigious win by masterfully managing his tyres. Still, it’s too little for a driver of his calibre especially when compared to Charles Leclerc, who has clearly been the driving force for Ferrari this season.

The relationship between Hamilton and Riccardo Adami, who took over the significant role previously held by Peter Bonnington at Mercedes, has also shown several cracks so far. Throughout the season, there have been noticeable tensions and misunderstandings between the two, sparking much debate among fans and insiders alike.

On the matter, Juan Pablo Montoya felt compelled to weigh in, speaking to AS Colombia without mincing words about the Italian engineer and, more broadly, about the relationship between Hamilton and the Maranello engineers.

Hamilton has to “get angry”

“I don’t think I’m in on it, but it sounds like: ‘Look, your teammate can drive it’ That’s the problem, that’s it,” the former Williams driver said.

“That happens a lot, and at some point, I don’t know what happened after the race, but at some point, Lewis is going to have to get angry and suddenly ask for a change of engineers or something''.

“Because if he makes a change of engineers, it would be good for the people around him to say: ‘Do I work with Lewis or will he take me out?’

Finally, speaking about Adami, Montoya added: ''The engineer, the attitude of not answering the radio, you have to be more professional than that and a person like that isn’t healthy for him, the team, it’s not healthy for anyone personally''.

“If I were with Ferrari, I would have pulled his ears and said: ‘You do that again, and you’ll be working at a desk in the office because we’re still not interested in people like you, do you understand?”