Three-time MotoGP champion Jorge Lorenzo tests Lewis Hamilton’s 2014 Formula 1 championship-winning Mercedes F1 W05 Hybrid at Silverstone.
Turns out being a Monster Energy affiliated athlete comes with certain perks, especially if you look good in radioactive grey. If you’re ‘Ballistic’ B.J. Baldwin for instance, you get to chuck an 800bhp Trophy Truck around the streets of California. If you’re Stephen ‘Baggsy’ Biagoni, you dominate DriftAllstars in Abu Dhabi, and if you’re Ken Block…well, the sky’s pretty much the limit.
And if you happen to be three-time MotoGP champion Jorge Lorenzo, you get to test drive a title-winning Mercedes-AMG F1 car.
Having recently parted company with Yamaha with both a farewell victory in Valencia, Lorenzo took to the track at Silverstone in the F1 W05 Hybrid that took both Lewis Hamilton to his second F1 championship in 2014 and helped Mercedes cement its first ever Constructors’ Championship in Formula 1. It remains one of the most dominant F1 seasons on record courtesy of 16 team victories from 19 starts (11 wins for Hamilton, five for teammate Nico Rosberg) and a further 15 podiums finishes.
Obviously, a trip into the gravel or Silverstone’s tyre barriers was not on the cards, with Lorenzo taking time out to try a 2012-spec Formula 2 car – unbranded – following some time in the Mercedes F1’s team’s race simulator in Brackley, UK. And while no official lap times were released, the newly-signed Ducati man remained ‘satisfied’ with his run (“from what the engineers were saying, my times were really competitive”).
Though the Mercedes test marked Lorenzo’s maiden run in an F1 car, it is not his first single seater experience. Having tested an old-spec GP2 car with the Spanish team Addax at Valencia in 2012. The run also drew parallels with old sparring partner Valentino Rossi following the seven-time World Champion’s run with the Ferrari F1 team at Fiorano back in 2006.
- You can also read our interview with Jorge Lorenzo in Abu Dhabi HERE
