F1 Miami GP: Lewis Hamilton struggles with radio instructions from Riccardo Adami again. Lewis Hamilton clashed again with his race engineer Riccardo Adami during the Miami GP.

Difficult communication
Everything seemed to go wrong on Sunday in Miami for Ferrari. The disappointing final result, the poor performance of the SF-25, and even internal tensions that exploded after a disastrous handling of team orders in an ultimately futile attempt to reclaim sixth position from the Mercedes of Andrea Kimi Antonelli. But beyond all these issues, another problem is emerging—less talked about but quite evident, despite the usual denials.

The issue concerns radio communications between Lewis Hamilton and his race engineer Riccardo Adami. That something wasn’t working perfectly in their dialogue had already become clear in the season opener in Australia, where their radio exchanges appeared anything but smooth. However, the impression is that the situation hasn’t improved in the following races—in fact, it may have worsened.

In practically every race so far, there have been at least one or two instances where Hamilton has expressed irritation at the type of communication coming through from his engineer—whether it was due to a lack of precision on a specific request or some other reason, there’s no shortage of examples.

Poor timing
In Miami, aside from the confusion in handling position swaps—which infuriated both drivers—another sharp exchange was noted between Lewis Hamilton and Riccardo Adami at the start of the race during the first stint. At the time, Lewis Hamilton was battling hard with the Haas of Esteban Ocon when Adami spoke on the radio to give an instruction seemingly related to switch positioning on the steering wheel.

Lewis Hamilton, clearly focused on the on-track action, didn’t take it well: “Stop talking to me while I’m in battle, damn it!” the seven-time world champion snapped. Shortly after, a similar situation occurred during a braking zone, and again Lewis Hamilton didn’t hide his frustration: “I’m in the braking zone and you’re talking to me,” was his next outburst.

These episodes can certainly happen during a race, but listening to these kinds of exchanges, the feeling is that the necessary rapport between driver and race engineer is missing. It’s a difficulty that’s somewhat understandable when moving from one team to another, as in Lewis Hamilton’s case, but one that should improve race after race. That doesn’t seem to be happening here, considering Lewis Hamilton has already—understandably—asked several times this year not to be given information during intense phases of the race.