What’s Italian for ‘Hammer Time?’ Lewis Hamilton seeks new radio call

Lewis Hamilton is considering an alternative to his famous “it’s Hammer Time” F1 radio call after joining Ferrari.

The radio message became an iconic part of Hamilton’s 12-season stint with Mercedes, and was a hurry-up call used by his former F1 race engineer Peter ‘Bono’ Bonnington as part of their successful partnership.

But following his blockbuster transfer to Ferrari, where the seven-time world champion will be working with new race engineer Ricardo Adami, Hamilton is now seeking a new radio call.

“I haven’t spoken to my engineer about that,” Hamilton said.

“I don’t know how it would sound with an Italian accent, so I’ll have to find an Italian word, probably. We’ll probably find something new.”

The Italian equivalent to 'Hammer Time’ is ‘Tempo di martello’ - which may be a bit of a mouthful for Adami.

Hamilton has been trying his best to learn as much Italian as possible to help speed up his adaptation with Ferrari.

“The effect is slightly different and the names they have are different,” he said. ’Anti-roll bar’ is still ‘anti-roll bar’. Some of the other parts of the geometry, there are different words for it.

“I’ve got it on my computer and I’m studying it each day and night to make sure I understand when they talk about these different components. I’ve done 12 years in another place where we talked about the same thing all the time.

“So I was used to it, I knew exactly what they were meaning. “But every time they [Ferrari] mention [something] in a debrief I’m like: ‘What part is this? Okay, it’s this part.’

“It’s part of the learning process and that’s what makes it exciting, because it’s all new.”

The origins of ‘It’s Hammer Time’

Hamilton previously explained the origins of the ‘it’s Hammer Time’ radio message.

It is a reference to the catch phrase in MC Hammer’s 1990 song “U Can’t Touch This”, combined with Hamilton’s three-letter designation ‘HAM’ used in F1.

"I think I came up with hammer time,” Hamilton said in 2022. “There was a point where he was like, ‘now is the time to push,’ and I got frustrated with him because I was like, ‘dude, I’m already pushing!’

“But I was like, if you're trying to signify now’s the time to go all out, use everything you have, I said just tell me it’s hammer time. That was part of our growth.

“I’m incredibly grateful for Bono, I’ve had an amazing journey with him. I think we’ve got one of the longest, if not the longest driver-engineer partnership that there’s been. He’s been hugely integral to my success.”