Rob Smedley warns Ferrari pressure can "break" top engineers as Lewis Hamilton adapts

Rob Smedley says Ferrari’s unique culture and relentless pressure can overwhelm even top engineers and warns Lewis Hamilton isn’t immune as he adapts to life at Maranello

Former Ferrari race engineer Rob Smedley has discussed the pressure of driving or working for the Maranello outfit, claiming he has seen "very good engineers being broken by it".

Lewis Hamilton made the move to Ferrari in 2025 after a 12-year stint with Mercedes. While the anticipation was high for the Briton at Ferrari, he took time to adapt to the new team, resulting in zero grand prix podium finishes for the whole season. His best grand prix finish was fourth in the Emilia Romagna, Austrian, British and United States Grands Prix.

He did, however, finish first in the sprint race over the weekend of the Chinese Grand Prix.

"I don't know Mercedes well," Smedley explained on the High Performance Podcast. "I know Ferrari very well, and I know other teams very well. And the environment within Ferrari is very, very different. So there will be for sure technical differences, right? The way they approach a weekend, the way that they set the car up, the technical aspects of the operations, all of that will be very different."

He added: "Mercedes fit Lewis like a pair of old slippers, right? He knew it. It was his team. Everything had been moulded around him. Then you go into this team that has this hundred-odd-year history where everything hasn't been moulded around you. In fact there's a very particular way of doing things. So all of that suddenly feels uncomfortable.

"Then there is the inordinate amount of pressure that you get."

Smedley worked at Ferrari from 2004 as Felipe Massa's race engineer until he moved with the Brazilian driver to Williams in 2014.

"It is very different to the pressure that he will have felt in any other team and I can say that because I've lived it, right? I lived and breathed the pressure of Ferrari," he continued.

Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari

Photo by: Joe Portlock / LAT Images via Getty Images

"When I first went there, and in those first years, I felt the pressure a lot; it was overpowering at times. There's very few people who have longevity of career in Ferrari in senior positions because of that, because of the pressure. You see that they just cave."

The former race engineer later added about Ferrari: "There's execution mistakes. You know it's well documented. It's not for me to say, I watch it on a Sunday afternoon, and I see it. They're improving in certain areas, other areas less so. So that whole thing creates this environment, especially in Ferrari, where the pressure grows and grows and grows.

"And when you're inside of that, it's difficult to describe what it's like when you're inside of it, I have seen people, very, very good people and honestly I can't say who they are, but very good people who I have a huge amount of respect for, really good engineers, very, very competent being broken by it. I guess Lewis isn't impervious to that, but the car needs to improve as well."