Lewis Hamilton’s first season with Ferrari just hit a snag with the bombshell exit of his performance guru, Riccardo Corte, who’s ditching not just the team but F1 entirely. The seasoned Ferrari brains is trading scarlet red for Australian Supercars, jumping ship to Grove Racing where he’ll engineer young gun Kai Allen starting in 2026.
Timing couldn’t be worse: Corte walks out as Ferrari heads into Brazil’s São Paulo showdown, a race where Hamilton desperately needs to crack his podium drought. Seven titles but zero champagne showers since joining the Scuderia—his best haul? A string of fourth-place finishes in Austria, Britain, and the U.S. Not exactly what the Tifosi dreamed of when he swapped Mercedes for Maranello.
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Corte’s legacy at Ferrari runs deep. Over a decade, he’s been the unsung hero, first shaping Charles Leclerc’s raw talent, then fine-tuning Carlos Sainz’s pace before Hamilton came knocking. But after Belgium, the brass shuffled him to development purgatory, and now he’s chasing fresh asphalt Down Under.
Grove Racing? Don’t sleep on them. Since a 2021 takeover, they’ve been clawing up the Supercars ranks, nabbing runner-up in last year’s Teams’ Championship and conquering Bathurst’s brutal 1000 km marathon. Corte’s gamble? Turning potential into trophies with Allen.
Meanwhile, Ferrari’s scratching their heads over who fills Corte’s shoes while Hamilton battles to mesh with the team’s famously finicky machinery. For Corte, it’s curtains on 11 years of F1 grind—and lights up on a wild new ride.