Mercedes F1 races the runway in Edinburgh [w/video]
Thu, 11 Sep 2014Turning airport runways into racetracks is nothing new. Sebring, Silverstone and the Top Gear test track were all made out of former military air bases. Mirabel airport north of Montreal – one of the largest airports ever built – has had part of its disused runways turned into a race course. And the Indy races in Cleveland and Edmonton were both held at local airports. It's not every day that your average driver, however, gets to drive down an airport runway – much less an active one. But that's what Race the Runway is all about.
Benefiting the Prince and Princess of Wales Hospice in Glasgow, the event is held on an auxiliary runway at Edinburgh Airport in Scotland and allows charitable gearheads the opportunity to drag-race their supercars down the strip while passenger jets take off and touch down on adjacent runways. This year's event brought out a wide array of performance machinery, ranging from Ferraris and Lamborghinis to a Nissan GT-R and Tesla Model S. Since Mercedes sponsors the event, it brought out a whole mess of its own AMG performance models, but the most exciting was undoubtedly the Mercedes F1 W03 grand prix racer.
Driven by former F1 driver and current WEC points leader Anthony Davidson, the car (which Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg drove in 2012) accelerated from a standstill to 62 miles per hour in 2.9 seconds, reached 124 mph in 5.7, 186 in 14.9 and after two ticks over 20 seconds, had reached a top speed of 192.6 mph. If you're having a hard time wrapping your mind around that kind of speed, just watch the footage to see how quickly Davidson manages to outpace the McLaren 650S alongside which the organizers, somewhat ironically, lined him up for the final heat.
MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS FORMULA ONE CAR HITS 192.6 MPH AT EDINBURGH AIRPORT
A MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS F1W03 Formula One car made its debut at the annual Race the Runway event in Scotland yesterday in spectacular style as it recorded a terminal speed of 192.6 mph on the auxiliary runway at Edinburgh Airport.
Driven by former Formula One and Le Mans racer Anthony Davidson, the F1W03 chassis lined up on the start line as passenger aircraft taxied just yards away. He accelerated from a standstill to 62 mph in 2.9 seconds, 124 mph in 5.7 seconds and 186 mph (300 km/h) in 14.9 seconds before reaching 192.6 mph in 20 seconds.
Race the Runway is run by and benefits the Prince and Princes of Wales Hospice in Glasgow. The event invites owners of high performance cars – not just Formula One machines – to participate in a series of drag races in return for a donation to the Hospice. For the second year Mercedes-Benz sponsored the event with examples of the A 45 AMG, C 63 AMG Black Series, the E 63 AMG S Estate, the GLA 45 AMG, the new S 63 AMG Coupé and the SLS AMG Black Series all taking part along with privately owned cars from Ferrari, Lamborghini, McLaren, Nissan and Tesla. In total, 32 cars competed – a record number for the event.
Of the Mercedes-Benz road cars at Race the Runway, the 631 hp SLS AMG Black Series achieved the highest top speed, hitting 161 mph.
The chassis used for the event was from the 2012 season and raced in the German, Hungarian, Belgian, Italian and Singapore rounds of the Formula One World Championship. Designed and built at the home of MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS in Brackley, the chassis is powered by a mighty naturally-aspirated V8 engine created by the engineers at Mercedes HighPeformancePowertrains, based in Brixworth.
By Noah Joseph