[Video] Driving a Mercedes F1 car flat-out round Goodwood | GRR
First published April 2nd 2015.
One of the many memorable happenings at the 73rd Goodwood Members’ Meeting was the IWC on-track moment which saw a 300SEL 6.3, an AMG GT and the Mercedes F1 W04 take part in a handicap ‘race’.
Current World Endurance Drivers’ Champion and former F1 pilot Anthony Davidson was at the wheel of the F1 car. We managed to catch up with him to find get an impression of what it was like out there after he’d finished, but now that the dust has settled we’ve put together a full on-board lap of Goodwood from a few camera angles.
Sadly, the footage isn’t from one full lap. During the race Mr Davidson had to slow down once he encountered the two other cars, so we’ve had to stitch together footage from a few laps, including the race tour, to give the impression of one full lap. Either way, it gives you a very good idea of the savage acceleration and dizzying speeds a contemporary Grand Prix machine can manage.
The punchline of course is that, aside from a brief trundle in a Toyota GT86 this was Anthony’s first taste of the Goodwood circuit! We timed this ‘virtual’ lap at 1:02, although clearly the car could go faster. Does anybody else reckon that sub-55 seconds could be on the cards? We might need to invite them back…