By AutodromeF1 Editorial Team
London. United Kingdom – May 1 2026
In a paddock often defined by rivalries, upgrades and split-second politics, a brief exchange this week offered a different texture. Lewis Hamilton, now in Ferrari red, paused on Miami media day to talk not about the SF-26 or championship points, but about a 21-year-old French driver who last April climbed into his old Mercedes.
Doriane Pin, the 2025 F1 Academy champion and Mercedes-AMG development driver, became the first woman to drive a Mercedes Formula 1 car when she completed a maiden test at Silverstone on 17 April 2025, logging 76 laps in the team’s 2021 championship-winning W12. She was also the first F1 Academy champion to complete a test in modern F1 machinery, and the first Frenchwoman to drive a Mercedes F1 car.
The moment resonated far beyond the timing screens at the National Circuit. For Hamilton, who drove that same W12 to eight wins alongside Valtteri Bottas during the 2021 constructors’ title campaign, it closed a loop. In Miami, where the 2026 Grand Prix runs from 1-3 May at Hard Rock Stadium, Hamilton spoke with unmistakable warmth about Pin’s achievement, praising Mercedes for opening the door and saying he had followed her progress since her earliest days in the junior programme.
It was, by several accounts in the paddock, classic Hamilton: generous, deliberate, and focused on the next generation.
The test that made history
Mercedes staged the run quietly, without the fanfare of a filming day. Pin arrived at Silverstone as the reigning F1 Academy champion, a title she secured in Las Vegas with a 15-point margin, and as a driver already embedded in the team’s development structure.
She drove the W12, the car that defined the final year of the previous regulations era. Over a full-day programme on the shorter National layout, she completed 76 laps, covering more than 200 kilometres in the 2021-spec machine.
Team radio and subsequent debriefs painted a picture of composure rather than spectacle. Trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin told staff afterwards: “She looked at home from the very first laps”.
Pin herself described the day in a self-shot video from the garage, holding her white, red and blue HJC helmet and wearing the black Mercedes race suit. “I’m very, very grateful for the opportunity,” she said, calling the downforce “very strong” and the car “one of the fastest” she had ever driven. In the caption she added simply: “Incredible. I’ll remember this day forever.”
The significance was not lost on the wider community. The official Formula 1 account framed the footage as “FIRST TIME DRIVING AN F1 CAR!”, noting Pin’s status as 2025 Academy champion. Comments split between celebration and the familiar, weary debate about pathways for women, but the dominant tone was one of recognition that a barrier had been crossed.
From Iron Dame to Mercedes junior
Pin’s route to that Silverstone cockpit has been anything but linear, which is partly why Hamilton has taken notice.
Born in Paris in 2004, she first made her name in endurance racing as part of the Iron Dames programme, winning the Ferrari Challenge Europe in 2022 and taking a class win at the 24 Hours of Spa the same year. Mercedes signed her as a junior in early 2024, placing her with Prema in F1 Academy, where she took three wins and eight podiums in her debut season before dominating the 2025 campaign.
Her role expanded in parallel. Mercedes lists her as a development driver for its F1 operation, while Peugeot also uses her in its World Endurance Championship simulator programme. For 2026 she will return to endurance competition, racing an LMP2 car for Duqueine Team in the European Le Mans Series.
It is that dual identity — single-seater prospect and proven endurance racer — that has made her a frequent presence around Brackley. Engineers speak of her technical feedback, particularly on brake-by-wire modulation and tyre management, skills honed in long-distance racing.
Hamilton first encountered her during F1 Academy briefings in 2023, when he was still a Mercedes driver and an outspoken advocate for the series founded by Susie Wolff. Team photographers captured the two in conversation on several occasions; in April 2026 Mercedes published a carousel that included an image of Hamilton hugging Pin in the garage, overlaid with his own words: “What an amazing day, congrats @dorianepin”. A separate story repost read: “Love this, well done @dorianepin”.
Hamilton’s full-circle moment
The Miami paddock therefore provided a natural stage for reflection. Hamilton left Mercedes after twelve seasons and six drivers’ titles, joining Ferrari for 2025 in the most seismic driver move of the decade. His adaptation has been steady; recent analysis notes his performance has improved significantly since the switch, with podiums in the early 2026 season and a car increasingly tailored to his attacking style.
Yet his ties to Brackley remain visible. On Thursday he arrived for media duties in a Saint Laurent ensemble, as is now customary, but spent several minutes discussing Mercedes’ junior pipeline rather than Ferrari upgrades.
Asked about Pin’s Silverstone run, he did not reach for platitudes. He recalled his own first proper F1 test at Silverstone in 2006 with McLaren, the disorientation of the braking power, the way the neck aches for days afterwards. He credited Mercedes for continuing to invest in the Academy pathway, and said he had watched Pin’s races “from afar” last year, impressed by her racecraft in Miami and Jeddah.
Paddock reporters paraphrased his assessment as calling her “a real force” in the junior ranks, a phrase consistent with his public social media tone over the past year. The warmth was notable precisely because Hamilton no longer has any formal link to her programme. It was mentorship without obligation.
George Russell, Hamilton’s former teammate, struck a similar note in the same Mercedes carousel, posting about a “very special moment” seeing Pin drive an F1 car for the first time. Wolff added: “So proud @dorianepin Our F1 Academy Champion”.
Why the W12 mattered
The choice of car was symbolic. The W12 was not merely a fast Mercedes; it was the last car Hamilton raced for a constructors’ championship-winning team before the ground-effect era. For Pin to drive it, in the same overalls Hamilton wore, created an emotional through-line that she acknowledged herself.
In interviews after the test, she spoke about spending time around Hamilton during her early Academy briefings, watching how he debriefed engineers, how he managed media, how he spoke about diversity in the sport. Driving “his” car, she said, made the day feel “extremely emotional.”
That emotion was visible in the garage imagery Mercedes later released: Pin seated on a Pirelli tyre, holding a SOLERA helmet branded with Meta AI, with a young girl in a child-size Mercedes suit standing beside her — a deliberate visual of continuity. The team described the image as celebrating both Pin’s journey and the sport’s commitment to nurturing female talent.
The broader picture for women in F1
Pin’s test does not grant her a super licence, nor does it guarantee a race seat. The FIA points system still requires sustained success in Formula 3 or Formula 2, pathways where funding and opportunity remain scarce for women. Comment threads on the official announcements reflected that reality, mixing congratulations with pointed questions about lap times and future steps.
But the test does change the visual archive of the sport. For twelve years, no woman had driven a current-generation Mercedes F1 car. For the F1 Academy, launched in 2023 to create a structured ladder, Pin’s 76 laps represent the first tangible bridge to top-tier machinery.
Hamilton has long argued that visibility matters. Since 2020 he has pushed Mercedes and the wider paddock on diversity initiatives, from the Accelerate 25 programme to his own Mission 44 foundation. In Miami, he linked Pin’s milestone directly to that work, saying the sport improves when young drivers see someone who looks like them in a competitive environment.
It is a stance that transcends team colours. Even as Ferrari tailors its SF-26 around his preferences, Hamilton continues to advocate for the institution that shaped him. In that sense, his Miami comments were not nostalgic; they were strategic.
What comes next for Pin
Pin’s 2026 calendar is already full. She will contest the European Le Mans Series in LMP2, continue simulator duties for Mercedes, and remain a central figure in F1 Academy mentoring, where she is slated to work with American prospect Payton Westcott.
Mercedes has not announced further F1 running, but the data from Silverstone — brake traces, steering inputs, energy deployment maps — will feed into its development programme. Shovlin’s assessment suggests the team saw more than a marketing day.
For Hamilton, the story offers a rare moment of uncomplicated pride in a season defined by adaptation. He arrived in Miami under pressure to close the gap to Red Bull and McLaren, with Ferrari bringing a revised rear wing aimed at his corner-entry style. Yet when asked about legacy, he pointed not to trophies but to people.
“She’s put in the work,” he said of Pin, according to several reporters present. “The test is just the start.”
In a sport that measures everything in thousandths, that kind of endorsement still counts. Pin drove 76 laps in a car that once carried Hamilton to a constructors’ title. A year later, in a different garage on the other side of the paddock, Hamilton made sure the moment was not forgotten.