F1, Ferrari: Sebastian Vettel’s latest rekindles memories of Carlos Sainz’s track engineer

Riccardo Adami recounts his memories with Sebastian Vettel

On Sunday, November 20, Sebastian Vettel will run the last Grand Prix of his glorious career in Abu Dhabi. The German driver raced for Ferrari during the years when his track engineer was Riccardo Adami, currently having the same role for Carlos Sainz.

In an interview with Motorionline, Adami recounted his memories with Vettel, with whom he also worked at Toro Rosso: “I have a lot of good memories related to Seb in the years we spent together both on and off the track, but I would risk compiling an endless list. For sure, I will forever carry with me the emotions of when he won at Monza in 2008 (with a Ferrari engine) and then the first victory, admittedly unexpected, in Malaysia in 2015 at the second race with the Scuderia. Also unforgettable for me are the 2017 and 2018 years, characterized by many victories, when, despite having an inferior car to the world champion team, we were fighting for the title for a long time. Seb brought a great contribution to the team in terms of methodologies and attention to detail. He was obsessed with continually improving every area and put a lot of effort into the hours at the simulator, giving useful feedback to make this tool evolve noticeably from when he started working on it.”

He then moved on to the upcoming Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, analyzing the characteristics of the track: “The track was radically modified last year to make it faster and increase overtaking. As a result, it is now even more challenging for the tires as well as for the set-up choices related to wing adjustment. Having Robert in the first practice session is an interesting exercise-it’s always good to see the enthusiasm in approaching driving a Formula 1 car from a young driver. We will give him the best opportunities to learn and improve as well as to try little things that will also be useful to Carlos (and Charles) for the rest of the weekend.”