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Sky Sports F1 pundit Karun Chandhok has expressed concern about Lewis Hamilton's lack of a full-time race engineer as Ferrari navigates a pre-season test in Montmelo with Bryan Bozzi working on both SF-26 machines.

Hamilton spent his first year with Ferrari working alongside Riccardo Adami, who had previously been the race engineer for Sebastian Vettel and Carlos Sainz. However, the duo didn't gel, and communication was an ever-present issue during a tumultuous first year in red.

During the off-season, Ferrari confirmed that Adami would not continue as Hamilton's race engineer in 2026, instead moving into the Ferrari Driver Academy and managing the TPC (testing of previous cars) programme.

However, rather than announcing Adami's successor immediately, Ferrari confirmed that Bozzi would steer Hamilton through the first pre-season test. Fred Vasseur is reported to be chasing Cedric Michel-Grosjean from McLaren, but the Frenchman is currently on gardening leave.

Assessing Hamilton's situation, Chandhok said: "I also think, the other thing that is slightly ringing alarm bells for me is his engineer situation because, as far as we understand, Bryan Bozzi, who is Charles Leclerc's normal race engineer, was running the car today, including for Lewis. That confuses me, if I am perfectly honest.

"Because that relationship between driver and race engineer is so, so important, and just picking up on Ant [Davidson's] point there, I think getting the feedback from the driver - really, in my experience, the good engineer-driver relationships are the unspoken things. The engineer and the driver should be able to read each other's minds.

"When one is complaining about something, the other one is already able to finish their sentences and say, 'We're going to do this, this, this, and this and change it, and that'll make it better for you'. And they haven't created a situation where Lewis is building that relationship over the winter.

"I would have loved to have seen him do simulator days, building the relationship. Go and get a TPC car - I know it is a different generation, an older car, but just go and bond, build a relationship with the new engineer.

"And you need to also integrate that person into the engineering setup of the race team, because they have to work in an environment along with the other engineers when the driver is not around. The public hears the driver-engineer discussion, but that's just a microcosm of the bigger conversations happening in that engineering office.

"To me, I'm slightly confused that as we sit here, we've already started testing, and that bonding and relationship building hasn't started off the back of a season which was not good."