Lewis Hamilton has dismissed speculation about what has been interpreted as a fractious relationship with Riccardo Adami, his race engineer at Ferrari, describing it as “BS” and insisting the pair enjoy a healthy working relationship.
The issue has previously been raised several times this season as Hamilton develops his dynamic with Adami and came to the fore once more because of some testy exchanges at the last round in Monaco, including when Hamilton asked his engineer at the end of the race: “Are you upset with me or something?” To which he appeared to receive no reply.
Speaking before this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix, Hamilton was insistent that the pair retained a strong relationship.
“There’s a lot of speculation, most of it is BS,” he said. “Ultimately, we have a great relationship. He’s been amazing to work with, he’s a great guy, working so hard. We both are.
“We don’t always get it right every weekend. Do we have disagreements? Like everyone does in relationships but we work through them. We’re both in it together. We both want to win a championship together. We’re both working towards lifting the team up.”
After the race in Monaco the Ferrari team principal, Fred Vasseur, similarly dismissed it as the pair learning to work with one another, combined with some radio issues specific to Monte Carlo.
Hamilton finished fifth, well behind his teammate Charles Leclerc who was second. During the race there was some terse communication between the British driver and Adami, with Hamilton believing he was not receiving enough information from his race engineer about the gaps on track.
It followed Hamilton’s rather dismissive query to the team, suggesting they were having a tea break rather than making strategic decisions at the Miami round.
Expectations were enormously high when Hamilton joined Ferrari but their car is not up to scratch and every aspect of his relationship with the team has come under scrutiny. He has been clear he expects himself and the Scuderia to do better but was unequivocal his relationship with Adami was not an issue and the focus on it was an irrelevance.
“It’s just all noise and we don’t really pay any attention to it,” Hamilton said. “It can continue if you want but it doesn’t make any difference to the job that we’re trying to do.
“Our relationship is great. And there are no problems. We are constantly learning more and more about each other and adapting the way we want to work. He has worked with lots of different drivers before. But we don’t have any problems whatsoever.”
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Beyond Ferrari, the topic set to dominate the weekend at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya is the clampdown on flexing front wings that comes into effect in Spain.
The technical directive from the FIA is intended to end any debate over whether teams have been running front wings that flex too much and gain an advantage while under load with, in this regard, fingers being pointed at title leaders McLaren.
The rule has been brought in for the ninth round of the season to give all the teams time to develop wings that would pass the new load-bearing tests this weekend, with speculation that it might cause something of a reset in the pecking order.
However, Lando Norris, who won in Monaco, maintained it would not make a difference to McLaren. “No, not at all,” he said. “There are tweaks here and there, but nothing that will change how we have to do it.”
After the FIA imposed an updated test on flexing rear wings at the Chinese GP earlier this season, which had no impact on McLarens’s pace advantage, the team are bullish this too will not usurp them from the top spot.
