Hong Kong Chinese driver Matthew Solomon has described the opportunity to share Erebus Motorsport’s SLS AMG GT3 Gullwing with Mika Hakkinen as surreal ahead of the GT Asia Series event at Zhuhai this weekend.
The 17-year-old, who is of Australian descent, has been spending time with Hakkinen since arriving in China and is taking every opportunity to learn from the two-time Formula 1 World Champion.
“I watched him on TV when I was really young and one of my most vivid memories of Mika was when he passed Schumi at Spa,” said Solomon. “It’s kind of surreal to be sharing a car with him.”
Despite his youth, Solomon passed a testing session with AMG Customer Sports in Germany earlier this year with flying colours and got the nod of approval to join Erebus for the event.
It is the first of two GT Asia Series races for the team with the other to come at the time-honoured Macau Grand Prix meeting next month.
The thundering SLS is very different to the single seaters that Solomon has been piloting.
“Of course the car is different and atmosphere will be a bit foreign as I’m making the transition from single seaters, but being a driver, we have to learn to adapt so there’s no doubt I’ll be able to get on top things. It’s such an honor to be driving with a legend like Mika.”
The campaign, which sees both the Bathurst 12 Hour winning Gullwing and the team’s second car in China, is the first international event for the Erebus GT team .
It will see Erebus have six racecars in total racing this weekend, with the three E63 AMG V8 Supercars at the Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 and the Dunlop Super Dealers Ute piloted by Stephen White come under the Erebus banner.
The Erebus/AMG Customer Sports initiative is being used as a launchpad for the program in China, with AMG owner, Daimler recently announcing it will be spending some $US2.67 billion to increase new passenger vehicle sales in the market by over 100,000 units per year by 2015.
