Lewis Hamilton 'only four seconds slower than MotoGP riders' on a superbike.

In 2019, Lewis Hamilton and Valentino Rossi swapped vehicles for a day: the Formula 1 driver drove Il Dottore's MotoGP Yamaha, while Rossi took the wheel of the Briton's Mercedes.

However, Hamilton's connection to motorcycles goes back further, as in 2018 he secretly tested a Yamaha YZF-R1… without informing Mercedes. 'They didn't tell me. He went with the strategy director and one of his engineers, who was particularly obsessed with motorcycles. During these two days there was no way to contact them', Mercedes F1 CEO Toto Wolff recalled on the Armchair Expert podcast.

According to the Austrian, when he was finally able to contact Hamilton's engineer, he was assured that everything was fine… although it was not without incident: 'When I asked him to explain, he told me that Hamilton had been in an accident’.

Wolff also learned about Hamilton's skill on a Motorcycle: 'They told me that Lewis was only four seconds behind the MotoGP riders. This is an incredible result. This sensitivity to speed is the secret that makes Lewis a natural talent and, therefore, a champion’.