A race-winning Formula One McLaren pushed by Lewis Hamilton in 2010 shall be put up for public sale on the British Grand Prix in July because it does laps of the Silverstone circuit.
The Mercedes-powered MP4-25A will carry a worth estimate of $5-7 million.
Seven-times world champion Hamilton, now at Mercedes, is Formula One’s most profitable driver of all time with a report 100 pole positions and 98 wins.
The 36-year-old Briton can add to that tally in Monaco this weekend.
“It’s a tremendous alternative to have a chunk of his story,” Felix Archer, a car specialist for auctioneers and Formula One partners RM Sotheby’s, told Reuters at a viewing on Tuesday.
“It’s the first time a Lewis Hamilton race winner has ever been publicly offered.”
The automotive, being bought by an unnamed non-public collector however not Hamilton or McLaren, received the Turkish Grand Prix after the Red Bulls of Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel collided whereas main one-two.
Hamilton drove it in 4 races that yr, 2009 world champion group mate Jenson Button in 5 and it achieved three podium finishes and a quickest lap.
“This is from an period the place the engines have been nonetheless screaming V8s and it is going to be pushed across the observe in anger,” said Archer.
“It will appeal to someone who either wants it as a collector’s item or literally wants to drive and sit where Lewis and Jenson sat and thrash it around the track.
“If someone was willing to pay over a million quid (pounds) for Kanye West’s trainers, I think there’s someone out there for a Lewis Hamilton Formula One car. It’s a true piece of art, a piece of history.”
McLaren Heritage will run the automotive for the customer, with round eight individuals and several other days’ preparation wanted to function it. The unique Bridgestone tyres have been changed with Avon rubber.
Archer mentioned the valuation put it within the realms of automobiles pushed by Germany’s seven-times world champion Michael Schumacher and the late Brazilian Ayrton Senna.
A 2002 Ferrari F1 automotive raced by Schumacher was bought for $6.65 million in Abu Dhabi in 2019.
“This very particular occasion will see us really public sale an F1 automotive, whereas it’s being pushed round an F1 circuit,(*7*)
The driver has but to be named but it surely is not going to be anybody from inside the F1 paddock on account of COVID-19 precautions requiring them to function in a ‘bubble’.
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