Lewis Hamilton trades F1 for MotoGP bike with Valentino Rossi

With six titles under his belt, Lewis Hamilton is undoubtedly one of the greatest drivers in Formula 1 today. When it comes to two-wheeled machines, however, Hamilton’s counterpart would be MotoGP rider, Valentino Rossi, aka The Doctor.

For those unfamiliar with Rossi, he currently has nine Grand Prix World Championships to his name, making him one of the most successful motorcycle racers of all time. Between the two, they have a total of 15 world title wins.

Recently, the two decided to swap rides at the Circuit Ricardo Tormo in Valencia. Rossi got into the Mercedes-AMG’s championship-winning W08 from 2017, while Hamilton rode the 2019 Yamaha MotoGP YZR-M1 used in the 2019 season finale.

Considering there is a big difference between driving a Formula 1 car and riding a MotoGP bike, both Hamilton and Rossi acted as mentors to each other. The pair was able to complete numerous runs on each other’s machine, and learned more as the day went on. By day’s end, both Rossi and Hamilton had managed to improve both of their times in the F1 car and the MotoGP bike, respectively.

“I also rode the YZR-M1 on track with Lewis. It was a proud moment for the team to share our passion with him. Technically, Valencia is a hard track and today was windy so at one point I thought it would be difficult for Lewis to continue, but he was brilliant on the bike and his position on the M1 was great. I think he had loads of fun which is the main thing,” said Rossi.

“It was so cool to be out on track and see Valentino ahead of me on the same bike,” Lewis said during his time out on track together with Rossi.

Hopefully, we get to see more motorsport legends from different fields swap rides in the future.