Lewis Hamilton and Valentino Rossi are two of the most iconic motorsport racers in the world. While Hamilton achieved greatness in Formula One, Rossi is the all-time leader in MotoGP in terms of championships won.

But it is a lesser-known fact that the MotoGP legend was very close to getting an opportunity in Formula One. He discussed the opportunity when both he and Lewis sat down for a chat recently.

This is the second high-profile meeting between the legends in front of the camera. They had previously swapped each other’s vehicles on the track in Valencia to ride them on the track. Both legends share an immense amount of respect for each other and their achievements. The Italian legend has previously mentioned that he shares a passion for Formula One cars in his downtime.

Valentino Rossi explains to Lewis Hamilton about his F1 test

Vale revealed he’s so passionate about the sport that he had to choose between riding cars or riding bikes. Hamilton asked him about his Formula One test back in 2006 and how it went down.

” At a certain point, I was quite close. Yes, at the end of 2006 I think seriously. So you need to make a program to drive another car before being the test driver. I think that is very very interesting and a great adventure, but difficult,” said Rossi.

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“Yeah, and also for me, I’m not able to achieve the same results with the cars done with the bikes. And also I was not ready to stop with the bikes really,” said the Italian MotoGP legend.

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Interestingly, it was the same year that Lewis Hamilton made his debut at the pinnacle of motorsports with McLaren.

So with his test at the end of 2006, it is safe to presume that he might have been testing with Ferrari in that. The Italian team were looking for a driver to replace Michael Schumacher who had just retired from the sport in 2006. They eventually went for Kimi Raikkonen as the preferred choice to replace the 7-time world champion in Ferrari.

But if Rossi had got the drive with Ferrari, then instead of Raikkonen it would have been him who would be fighting against Lewis for the championship. But sadly, it never came to fruition for F1 fans.

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