Can reigning four-time World Rally Champion Sébastien Ogier master 200mph Red Bull F1 car?

WHEN you're a reigning four-time world rally champion surely you've fulfilled your childhood dreams?

Ask Sébastien Ogier, though, and he'll tell you the thrill of F1 still burns bright in his heart.

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So he jumped at the chance to follow in the footsteps of his idol Ayrton Senna and climb in the cockpit of a F1 car.

Taking the opportunity during the mid season break in the FIA World Rally Championship, Ogier travelled to Austria to live out his dream.

Ogier said: "As a kid I was watching Senna, he was my idol, and of course I was dreaming one day to try this kind of car.

"For a racing driver to have fun you need to be fast and a Formula One car is the fastest car you can drive, so of course every racing driver wants to feel that one day."

Ogier wasn't just strapped into any old car, though.

He was given free rein in Red Bull's 2011 RB7 - a model that produced 12 wins, a constructors' title and a driver championship win for Sebastian Vettel.

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And despite 40 rally wins, 493 stage victories and four world titles, mastering the 325kph (200mph) F1 car that produces 4.5G wasn't easy.

On hand to lend some advice was former Red Bull driver and F1 race winner David Coulthard.

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Coulthard said: "There's a couple of challenges, for Sébastien coming in and driving a Grand Prix car for the first time when you're used to be in the rally car, you've got a lot more cockpit space, with a Grand Prix car, it's a much more compact and hostile environment."

But Ogier was delighted with his test around a sunbaked Red Bull Ring in Spielberg, Austria - even if he did end up facing the wrong way at one point.

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He said: "I know that I'm still far from the real limit of the car but to know where the limits are sometimes you have to cross them, so I did have a spin there but lucky nothing really bad.

"It was awesome. I mean it's super quick but also you feel very quickly comfortable in it, there is a lot of downforce and a lot of power.

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"I think I'll have to reset and remember what is the speed and the breaking point of my rally car because if I tried the same I probably am going to get into some trouble."

Ogier won't have much trouble resetting as he'll take an 11 point lead over Belgian rival Thierry Neuville into the Rally Finland on July 27.