Lewis Hamilton raised attention after the Formula 1 Belgian Grand Prix when he said he had “a change of engineer” at Ferrari, who has been revealed to be Johannes Hatz, son of former Porsche executive Wolfgang Hatz.
The seven-time F1 world champion’s comment “we were both in a deep end” about a new engineer after the Spa race provoked intrigue given there was no announcement of a change on Hamilton’s side of the garage by Ferrari.
Indeed, Hamilton’s race engineer Riccardo Adami remains in place and, while their working relationship hasn’t always been smooth since teaming up, their communication seems to be steadily improving.
The change Hamilton referred to is his performance engineer, Johannes Hatz, a German who previously worked at Porsche Motorsport in 2011-12, after roles at Abt and Audi, and completed his bachelor’s degree there. Since 2013, he has held various engineering positions in F1, all at Red Bull’s junior team based in Faenza.
Johannes Hatz is the son of Wolfgang Hatz, a long-time Volkswagen executive who served as Porsche’s board member for research and development until 2015 – the year of the Dieselgate scandal.
Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari, Liam Lawson, Racing Bulls Team
Photo by: Ryan Pierse / Getty Images
Hamilton caused some confusion with his comment that he had known his new engineer “for years” and that the two had worked on “my previous team with me, but not in that position”. This has since turned out to be a misunderstanding as Hatz was never at Mercedes; he moved directly from Racing Bulls to Ferrari in January 2024.
“It’s not easy to switch engineers within the middle of a season,” Hamilton said. “We’re getting used to each other, and having to learn super, super quick.”
After a nightmare start to the Belgian GP with early exits from both sprint qualifying and grand prix qualifying, and finishing outside of the points in the sprint, the two enjoyed a solid recovery that saw Hamilton charge from a pitlane start to seventh place in Sunday’s grand prix.
Internally, the reshuffle is not considered unusual, as Ferrari stated that trackside personnel are rotated occasionally. Hatz replaced Riccardo Corte as performance engineer on Hamilton’s car, with Corte reassigned internally at Ferrari, though his new position is not publicly known.
Additional reporting by Ben Vinel
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