Mercedes F1 races the runway in Edinburgh [w/video]
 

Filed under: Videos, Mercedes-Benz, UK, Racing

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Turning 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.Continue reading Mercedes F1 races the runway in Edinburgh [w/video]

Mercedes F1 races the runway in Edinburgh [w/video] originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 11 Sep 2014 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.



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09-11-2014 07:30 PM