In June 2016, we heard of Jorge Lorenzo’s wish to ‘be Hamilton for a day’. The Mallorcan driver, thanks to Monster Energy – then sponsor of his Yamaha and Mercedes team – was able to fulfill his dream and got behind the wheel of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg’s Mercedes AMG F1 W05 at the Silverstone track.
Invited by the energy drink brand and the German manufacturer, the former MotoGP rider got into the car with which Hamilton was proclaimed F1 world champion in 2014 and throughout the day he got used to the reactions of the powerful single-seater .
“It has been a great experience, like a dream come true,” #99 commented that Thursday in 2016. “These last few days have been very special, I had the opportunity to work with some of the best engineers in the sport. I drove an F2, I had sessions in the test simulator and finally I was able to get into F1. I am very happy with the lap time in my last run. From what the engineers were telling me, my times were very competitive.”
Photos: this was Jorge Lorenzo’s test in Mercedes Formula 1
Photo de: Monster Energy
Photo de: Monster Energy
Photo de: Monster Energy
Photo de: Monster Energy
Photo de: Monster Energy
Photo de: Monster Energy
Photo de: Monster Energy
Photo de: Monster Energy
Photo de: Monster Energy
Photo de: Monster Energy
Photo de: Monster Energy
Photo de: Monster Energy
Photo de: Monster Energy
Photo de: Monster Energy
Photo de: Monster Energy
Photo de: Monster Energy
Photo de: Monster Energy
Photo de: Monster Energy
Photo de: Monster Energy
Photo de: Monster Energy
Photo de: Monster Energy
Photo de: Monster Energy
In Mercedes, they ended up surprised with Lorenzo. Richard Lane was the engineer in charge of coordinating the plan for the test day and at the end he said: “It has been great working with Jorge. From the moment he arrived you could see his enthusiasm and desire, he has been hooked. Between each batch he’s been poring over the data, and trying to find areas to improve his times. You can see why he’s a multiple world champion on bikes, his interest in the detail of his work has impressed us. He’s been learning every ride, and improving in all of them”.
After retiring from MotoGP, Jorge Lorenzo switched to cars, and in 2022 he competes in the Porsche Carrera Cup in Italy.
In a similar way, and also with Monster involved, a year later Hamilton and Rossi would make an exchange for history, in which the multi-time F1 champion got on the Yamaha and the multi-time MotoGP champion got on the Mercedes.
