Valentino Rossi showed he is a “true master” with his performance in the Mercedes during the Formula 1/MotoGP swap event.
The Italian got behind the wheel of Lewis Hamilton’s world championship-winning W07 in Valencia and unofficially lapped within 1.5s of the Briton in his first F1 outing since 2010, Sky Sports claimed.
But as for Mercedes’ reaction, chief strategist James Vowles admitted Rossi’s incredible ability was clear to see almost immediately.
“Valentino’s approach was very meticulous,” he was quoted by Crash.net.
“He got the fundamentals right first in terms of getting the car to where he wanted it to be on track and controlling it, and then just intuitively braking later and carrying more speed into the corner, almost like I imagine he does with a MotoGP bike, it’s very impressive to watch.
“It is really the sign of a true master that he’s not out of control and progressively finding performance,” Vowles noted. “Throughout the day, he had areas of strengths. One of them was braking late and carrying speed into the corner, he’s really good at that.
“Give him another day or two in the car, and he will then be on top of the fundamentals plus the tuning of all of that.
“There is a lot of performance to come. In slow-speed corners, as in the exits onto the start-finish straight, there he was very good. Where he was a little bit behind Lewis – and it doesn’t surprise me too much – is high speed [corners].”
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As for Hamilton, he was reportedly four seconds down on Rossi’s best time as he rode the Yamaha M1 MotoGP bike for the first time.
Yamaha boss Lin Jarvis though was also struck but how the six-time F1 champion adapted.
“I was very impressed by Lewis’ performance,” he said. “Because how many champions of cars could come here and get on an M1, go out there and do themselves proud?
“The techniques of driving the car and riding the bike are so different but obviously the human skill set of being able to deal with racing and speed, lines and reactions and so forth is common so it’s fantastic to watch.”