What It’s Like Driving F1’s Safety Car

erik shilling

Thu, 14 Nov 2024, 8:00 am·4-min read

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Bernd Mayländer has been driving Formula 1’s safety car for nearly a quarter century but, a couple hours before this year’s United States Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Tex., in mid-October, Mayländer was a little antsy. At that point in the season, the safety car hadn’t been deployed for nine straight grands prix, the longest such run since 2003.

“It’s strange because already there are some people, they are saying, are you still there?” Mayländer said about an hour before the race. He needn’t have worried: by the third lap, Lewis Hamilton spun out and Mayländer and the Aston Martin Vantage safety car he drives were back on the track, nine-race streak broken. The safety car was deployed the following week in Mexico City, too, in the first lap of the race after Yuki Tsunoda crashed.

Mayländer is the most experienced Formula 1 safety car driver ever, having been in the seat since 2000, though that is also because for much of its history Formula 1 didn’t use a safety car. The first was deployed in Montreal in 1973 but not again until Monaco in 1976, and then not again until Monaco in 1981. That year, it was a Lamborghini Countach, which returned in 1982 and in 1983 at Monaco before the safety car again disappeared from F1 until 1993.

Initially, F1 simply said that every track must supply its own safety car for each race, which, as Formula1.com reports, resulted in a strange 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 1996 Argentine Grand Prix.”

But since the 1996 season every Formula 1 safety car has been supplied by Mercedes, and, since 2021, Aston Martin has been sharing the responsibility as well, the former supplying an GT Black Series and the latter a Vantage.

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The cars are equipped with several screens to feed Mayländer information, and he has a co-driver as well, Richard Darker, who helps with communication. For all the new tech, though, Mayländer says that old-school radio communication is still “the most important thing.”

Since 2015, Formula 1 has also had a Virtual Safety Car system, which slows drivers down during recovery work after incidents, depending on the race director’s discretion. That system does not bunch up cars as it does with the deployment of Mayländer and his co-driver, which can change teams’ race strategy. Both the Virtual Safety Car and physical safety car are there to keep cars on the track and the race moving after race incidents, to keep tires warm, and avoid a longer stoppage.

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

“If you’re going wide, there’s no space,” Mayländer said. “So that’s always in your mind. You always have to know what can happen. And you have to remind yourself you are driving the safety car. Not the race car. You don’t take the trophy after the race.”

Mayländer has been around long enough to see the safety cars evolve, and he has a learned appreciation for the Vantage and GT Black Series, which are a lot more advanced than the safety cars he first started driving in F1. Some of that is apparent in the screens and communications tech inside the car, but Mayländer said that it’s much better from a driver’s perspective too.

“If you give information to the car, you get immediate information back from the car,” he said. “And that information is very quick for a driver to adapt his driving style, and on the wet conditions it’s even more important.”

Mayländer praised the Aston Martin Vantage, saying it has the power and balance required but also, crucially, air conditioning, since Formula 1 races all over the world in conditions that usually range from warm to absolutely baking.

“We have a running engine during the race, for all the systems, what we have inside the cars. So that means air conditioning is working,” Mayländer said. “That’s an important detail especially if you are in Singapore and in the hot parts of the world. You’re sitting there fixed with seat belts, ready to go.”