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What it’s like to drive F1’s safety car

Online Niel November 14, 2024

Bernd Mayländer has driven Formula 1’s safety car for nearly a quarter of a century, but hours before this year’s United States Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas in mid-October, Mayländer was a little anxious. At that point in the season, the safety car had not been used for nine consecutive grands prix, the longest such run since 2003.

“It’s weird because there are already some people, they say, are you still there?” Mayländer said about an hour before the race. He needn’t have worried: by the third lap, Lewis Hamilton had dropped Mayländer and the Aston Martin Vantage safety car He was leading again on the track, with nine races stopped. The safety car was also launched the following week in Mexico City on the first lap of the race after Yuki Tsunoda crashed.

Mayländer is Formula One’s most experienced safety car driver ever, having been in the seat since 2000, although that is also because for much of Formula One’s history it has not used a safety car. First was held in Montreal in 1973 but not again until Monaco in 1976 and then again until Monaco in 1981. That year it was a Lamborghini Countach, which returned in 1982 and 1983 at Monaco before the safety car disappeared again from F1 until 1993.

Originally, F1 simply said that each track must provide its own safety car for each race, which, as reported by Formula1.comresulted in an odd collection including a ‘FIAT Tempra at the 1993 Brazilian Grand Prix, a Ford Escort Cosworth at the 1993 British Grand Prix, a Honda Prelude in Japan in 1994 and a Renault Clio at the Argentine Grand Prix since 1996.”

But since the 1996 season every F1 safety car has been supplied by Mercedes, and from 2021 Aston Martin will also share the responsibility, the former supplying a GT Black Series and the latter a Vantage.

Image credit: Bryn Lennon

The cars are equipped with multiple screens to provide information about Mayländer, and he also has a co-driver, Richard Darker, who helps with communication. Yet for all the new technology, Mayländer says old-school radio communications are still “the most important thing.”

Since 2015, Formula 1 has also had a Virtual Safety Car system, which slows down drivers during recovery work after incidents at the discretion of the race director. This system does not stack cars as during the deployment of Mayländer and his co-driver, which can change the race strategy of the teams. Both Virtual Safety Car and physical safety machine they are there to keep the cars on the track and the race moving after race incidents, keep the tires warm and avoid a longer stop.
Image credit: Lars Baron

The Mayländer drives in the conditions, but it’s often safer to drive faster and closer to the limit than slower. The things that worry him the most are pieces like Circuit de Monaco or the Baku City Circuit, both of which are narrow.

“If you go wide, there’s no room,” Mayländer said. “So that’s always in the back of your mind. You always have to know what can happen. And you have to remember that you are driving the safety car. Not the race car. You don’t get the trophy after the race.”
Image credit: Peter Fox

Mayländer has been around long enough to see the evolution of safety cars and learn appreciation for Vantage and the GT Black Series, which are far more advanced than the safety cars he started driving in F1 almost a quarter of a century ago. Some of that is evident in the screens and communications technology inside the car, but Mayländer said it’s also much better from the driver’s perspective.

“If you give information to the machine, you immediately get information back from the machine,” he said. “And that information is very quick for a driver to adapt their driving style, and in wet conditions it’s even more important.”
Image credit: Lars Baron

praised Mayländer Aston Martin Vantagesaying it has the necessary power and balance but also, crucially, air conditioning, as Formula 1 races all over the world in conditions that usually range from hot to absolutely baking.

“We have an engine running during the race, for all the systems, what we have inside the cars. So that means the air conditioning is working,” Mayländer said. “This is an important detail especially if you are in Singapore and hot parts of the world. Just sit there with your seat belts on, ready to go.”