Lewis Hamilton finally climbed to the top step of the podium for the first time in Ferrari colours by winning the Spanish Grand Prix at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya last weekend. The result marked a major turning point for the seven-time Formula 1 world champion, who endured his most difficult season in F1 in 2025 after joining the Scuderia and struggling to adapt to the SF-25.
Since then, Hamilton has built a team of engineers around him that has allowed him to extract the maximum performance from the SF-26, a car he also helped develop. One of the key elements of this resurgence has been the strong relationship he has formed with his new race engineer, Carlo Santi, the man the British driver refers to as “my Italian Bono.”
Who is Carlo Santi?
Carlo Santi is 52 years old and was born in Verona. He has worked within Ferrari’s Formula 1 operation for more than a decade.
He worked closely with Kimi Räikkönen during the 2016 and 2017 seasons before becoming the Finnish driver’s race engineer in 2018. That partnership culminated in Santi standing on the podium alongside Räikkönen for the Finn’s final Formula 1 victory at the 2018 United States Grand Prix in Austin.
Afterward, Santi moved into leadership roles, working in Ferrari’s Maranello-based “remote garage,” supporting the drivers and the team throughout race weekends.
Santi has dreamed of working for Ferrari since childhood, although the path to Maranello was far from straightforward. Speaking to Ferrari’s official website last year, he explained: “From a young age, working for Ferrari was my ultimate goal. However, the road that brought me here was not simple.”
After graduating in Mechanical Engineering from the Polytechnic University of Milan, specializing in ground vehicles, he accepted a scholarship at the FIAT Research Centre in Turin and later joined the vehicle dynamics department.
Five years later, he moved into motorsport as a performance engineer with an endurance racing team before eventually joining Ferrari as a model engineer for the company’s first driving simulator.
“Fifteen years later, after working in driving simulation, vehicle dynamics, race engineering and performance engineering, I’m still here, suffering when things don’t go well and celebrating after every victory,” he added.
The engineer change and the connection with Lewis Hamilton
Lewis Hamilton’s struggles during his debut Ferrari season in 2025 prompted the team to replace his original race engineer, Riccardo Adami. Carlo Santi stepped into the role at the start of the 2026 season.
Lewis Hamilton commented on the decision in February: “First of all, with Riccardo it was quite a difficult decision to make, and I’m really grateful for all the effort he put in last year and for his patience. It was a difficult year for all of us.”
Although Carlo Santi’s appointment was initially intended to be temporary, the pair quickly developed a strong working relationship. The partnership has already delivered one victory and two second-place finishes in the last three races.
Following his second-place finish in Canada, Lewis Hamilton praised his new engineer: “I chose a different set-up this weekend, studying the data and working really well with my engineer. He’s absolutely fantastic and I’m really enjoying working with him.”
He added: “My number two did a fantastic job this weekend. He helped me extract more performance from the car by getting it into a much sweeter operating window, and I was finally able to attack every corner.”
“My Italian Bono”
The relationship between Lewis Hamilton and Carlo Santi has inevitably drawn comparisons with Hamilton’s legendary partnership with Peter ‘Bono’ Bonnington, his race engineer at Mercedes for ten years and a key figure in six of his seven world titles.
Before the Monaco Grand Prix, the Briton said: “Having that driver-engineer partnership is sometimes a gamble. With me and Bono, we clicked immediately from the very beginning. I feel Carlo is like my ‘Italian Bono’. I told Bono that the other day.
“He’s a more experienced guy who has seen everything. He’s very calm. That’s one area where we’ve really been able to dig deep together. Our understanding of the engineering side of things is something worth highlighting.”
Lewis Hamilton also explained why the relationship between driver and race engineer is so important: “Working together is incredibly important. I think Riccardo Adami and I had a good relationship last year. He’s a lovely guy. We worked relatively well together. But adapting to a driver’s needs takes time. When you give feedback to an engineer, they need to understand the corner balance, all the different elements contributing to the difficulties you are experiencing.”
After his victory in Barcelona, Hamilton underlined how Carlo Santi had effectively “reignited” his passion for Formula 1. Their partnership has helped him feel more comfortable within the team, alongside the support of Team Principal Fréd Vasseur.
Hamilton now sits just 41 points behind championship leader Andrea Kimi Antonelli. Time will tell whether the seven-time world champion and his “Italian Bono” have many more victories to celebrate together.
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