Mercedes F1 Team Fulfills Teenage Boy's Wish

Sometimes motorsport joins hands with people in the most unexpected ways. We say unexpected because of the way Matthew James, a 14-year-old teenager who was born without a left hand, managed to make himself heard all the way to the boss of Mercedes GP Petronas team, Ross Brawn. The 14-year-old boy from Wokingham in Berkshire, UK received a bionic hand from them.

The teenager had his eye on i-Limb Pulse from Touch Bionics, a company in Scotland. But the device was too expensive for his family to afford. More specifically GBP 30.000 (about. $49.000) were needed. So in a moment of courage he decided to ask Ross Brawn for help after the F1 boss visited Reading School. Matthew explained in a letter for Mercedes’ boss that he would offer to have his hand sponsored by the F1 division in exchange for help.

A short time after that, Matthew was invited for a tour round the Mercedes factory, while a member of the F1 team got in touch with Touch Bionics. Matthew described his old hand like "a simple open and close mechanism, like a claw while the new one has five individual motors in each finger and therefore each finger can move individually."

"Matthew's letter to the team was very touching. Meeting Matthew, and hearing first hand how the new device would improve his quality of life, was a pleasure and I am delighted that our initial contact has now led to such a positive conclusion," said Ross Brawn, as related by bbc.co.uk.