Lewis Hamilton’s ‘Italian Bono’ set for Ferrari stay after breakthrough win

Ferrari has no plans to replace Lewis Hamilton’s race engineer Carlo Santi after the “Italian Bono” helped guide the seven-time world champion to his first victory in red at the Barcelona Grand Prix.

The win marked Hamilton’s first as a Ferrari driver and narrowed the gap as runner-up to championship leader Kimi Antonelli to 41 points.

Lewis Hamilton praises Carlo Santi after Ferrari Barcelona victory

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Hamilton’s first season with Ferrari in 2025 was marred by terse radio exchanges with his then-race engineer Riccardo Adami.

From “tea break” clashes to silences that said so much, the lack of synchronicity between Hamilton and Adami saw the latter reassigned to head the Ferrari Driver Academy.

Santi took over as the temporary voice in Hamilton’s ear on race weekends.

But after four podium results in seven Grands Prix, including a victory at the Barcelona race, PlanetF1.com understands there are no plans to change Santi – even if he was originally planned as an interim solution.

Ferrari had signed former McLaren man Cedric Michel-Grosjean, who was believed to be the long-term replacement for Santi, but after the Barcelona success, the Italian race engineer won’t be leaving the hot seat any time soon.

Such is the relationship between Hamilton and Santi, the seven-time world champion called the 52-year-old his “Italian Bono”.

‘Bono’ was Hamilton’s long-time race engineer at Mercedes, and the man who guided the driver to six world titles in seven seasons from 2014 to 2020.

Speaking about Santi, Hamilton said: “I think catering to a driver’s needs takes time to learn. When you’re giving an engineer feedback, they’re understanding through corner balance, they’re understanding all the elements that contribute to the struggles of driving.

“You try to describe what it is, the problem you have, corner by corner, entry, middle, exit, or you dissect it into five sections if you want. Having that driver-engineer collab, it’s hit and miss sometimes.

“With me and Bono, apart from the beginning, he had a good working relationship with Michael [Schumacher].

“I do feel like Carlo is like my Italian Bono.”

Santi joined Hamilton on the podium at the Barcelona race, with the Briton praising him for helping to reignite his love of being a Formula 1 driver.

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“Yeah, it was great to have him up there,” said Hamilton.

“I think, him kind of substituting this year, jumping in and diving in deep with me. We didn’t know each other, we’d never spoken and I didn’t really know much of… I didn’t know anything about him. And we met and I think got on straight away.

“But it’s great to be able to connect with an engineer other than what I used to have. You know, I had it for such a long time and then you kind of lose that feeling because Bono’s now doing it with Kimi.

“It’s really great to be able to share that experience with him on that stage, and also probably, like, he’s very, very quiet. You could tell it’s hard for him to express his emotions. He’s just smiley and, you know, I’m giving him these big hugs and pulling him in, saying thank you.

“I like to think that this has probably reignited the love that he has as being an engineer as he has done for me as a driver.”

Hamilton is up to second in the Drivers’ Championship standings after Barcelona. The gap is 41 points to leader Antonelli, who retired from the race with what appeared to be a fresh Mercedes battery issue.

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