Ex-F1 driver buys £2.4m Mercedes with F1 engine as ‘unique’ opportunity arises :

Former F1 driver Christijan Albers has expressed his delight at picking up a Mercedes AMG-ONE, the £2.4million road car built to house a Formula 1 engine within it.

The Mercedes power unit used in modern day F1 machinery boasts a whopping 1063bhp, and only a select few people around the world have been able to get their hands on one of these prized cars – with the former F1 driver being one of them.

He had to wait a long time for it, though, given the construction time and the length of the project being undertaken by Mercedes and AMG to create the machine.

Christijan Albers describes ‘unique’ experience of owning road-going Mercedes with F1 engine

The Mercedes AMG-ONE is a highly complicated piece of engineering that took years for the manufacturer to complete, with the task of putting F1 power into a road car far from an easy task.

Mercedes say it can accelerate from 0-125mph in just seven seconds and boasts a ‘Strat 2’ max-power mode that is able to tune the car in a way to replicate how F1 cars operate during qualifying.

While the former Minardi, Midland and Spyker driver knows it was a massive outlay in spending to get himself one of these cars, the opportunity to do so was too good to pass up.

“I ordered my copy over six years ago and now it is finally ready,” Albers told Dutch publication De Telegraaf.

“Putting an engine like that in is one thing, but of course a road car is something else.

“There are all these compressors and hydraulic systems in it. And a lift system, so you can drive over a threshold, for instance, and cooling is actually the most important thing.

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“In a road car, you don’t have as much driving wind as in Formula 1, because of course you are sometimes in traffic jams.

“This is such a unique project. I don’t think this will ever be made again, and because of the hybrid system with the electric motors, it also fits in with today’s greener times. For me, it really is the overall picture.

“A Formula 1 engine as we can now and a road car with SO much downforce. It’s not a car for the daily commute, so to speak.

“I am aware that it is a lot of money. But to be able to drive a car with a Formula 1 engine as a former Formula 1 driver… That opportunity never comes along again. I felt I had to grab it with both hands.”

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