Luca Baldisseri, Michael Schumacher's former race engineer at Ferrari, has accused Lewis Hamilton of making "excuses" for his difficulties adapting to his new team.
The seven-time world champion has openly admitted he needs to improve but has cited specific technical challenges, such as unfamiliar brake materials and "engine braking," as barriers to acclimatisation.
"I don't believe certain things," Baldisseri, who served as Schumacher's race engineer in the early 2000s and later as Ferrari's chief track engineer, told Formula Critica. "What he said about engine braking is excuses," the Italian added.
Baldisseri, no longer with Ferrari, suggested Hamilton is deflecting scrutiny. "Hamilton has seen that the car is what it is and that his teammate is able to push it to the limit more than he can, and at that point it is inevitable that the finger is pointed at him. So he came up with these justifications saying 'I can't adapt to this braking management'."
However, Baldisseri believes Ferrari must share responsibility as well.
"When a driver of Hamilton's calibre changes teams, it's clear that the new team tries to understand what the driver had available in the previous team," he said.
"When Michael came to us in 1996, it's clear that we asked him what his driving style was and what his concept of the car was. In the case of Hamilton, I don't know if that was done, but it apparently doesn't seem to have been done. If a driver is saying in the fourth race that he can't adapt to a car, you inevitably have to ask yourself—what have they been doing until now?"
The 62-year-old pointed to a lack of connection between Hamilton and his new race engineer, Riccardo Adami. "There is no symbiosis between them yet," Baldisseri said, "and that's a big burden for Adami because it won't be easy. Toto Wolff said recently that the communication that Kimi Antonelli has today with 'Bono' is light years away from that between Hamilton and 'Bono' himself."
He elaborated, "Hamilton speaks in monosyllables, while Kimi is like a river in full flood, in the sense that he talks about his feelings, the behaviour of the car and expresses what he needs, and in this way the track engineer has a much clearer picture of what is happening. Having a driver who communicates in monosyllables and also is called Lewis Hamilton, I can imagine that Adami has trouble understanding him. On team radio it often seems that they don't understand each other—one says one thing and the other understands something else."
Eurosport Italia reports that former Red Bull head of operations Richard Hopkins has warned that Ferrari could target Max Verstappen for 2026 if Hamilton fails to improve.
Meanwhile, Hamilton's teammate Charles Leclerc stressed the need for Ferrari to raise its performance more generally. "I'm not thinking too much about the championship at the moment," Leclerc told RTBF in Saudi Arabia.
"It's certain that the more races go by, the less we can afford to lose points. We've already let a lot slip away at the start of the year. We really need to react, even if we've already started to do so."
