Reigning world champion Max Verstappen needs Formula 1 to hurry up its Aston Martin safety car, which he likened to a “turtle” after final weekend’s Australian Grand Prix. During the 58-lap race, the safety car was introduced out on two events after Carlos Sainz beached his Ferrari within the gravel and Sebastian Vettel’s crash.
The motorsport at present has two safety automobiles – an Aston Martin Vantage and a Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series – which alternate at races, with the previous being pushed by former DTM racing driver Bernd Maylander at Albert Park Circuit final Sunday.
While each safety automobiles function a 4.0 litre twin-turbo V8, it’s the Black Series with essentially the most energy, serving up 730 PS in comparison with the Aston’s 535 PS. The Mercedes-AMG safety car additionally delivers larger ranges of aerodynamic efficiency by comparability.
“There’s so little grip and the safety car was driving so slow, it was like a turtle. Unbelievable,” Verstappen stated after the race. “To drive 140 [km/h] on the back straight, there was not a damaged car, so I don’t understand why we have to drive so slowly. We have to investigate,” he continued.
“For sure the Mercedes safety car is faster because of the extra aero, because this Aston Martin is really slow. It definitely needs more grip, because our tyres were stone cold. It’s pretty terrible the way we are driving behind the safety car at the moment,” Verstappen added.
While behind a safety car, drivers usually weave their automobiles backward and forward to attempt to maintain their tyre temperatures at an optimum stage so there’s sufficient grip on the restart. Verstappen took each restarts behind eventual race winner Charles Leclerc, who agreed along with his 2022 rival however didn’t complain on the radio.
“To be honest it always feels too slow in the car because with those Formula 1 cars, we have so much grip and it’s very, very difficult, especially on the compound we were all on, which was the hards,” stated Leclerc in a post-race interview.
“I was struggling massively to put some temperature in them, so I also struggled. To be honest, I wanted to complain, but then I checked how much the safety car was sliding in the corner and I don’t think there was anything more that he could give so I didn’t want to put too much pressure. For sure with the cars that we have now it’s very difficult to keep the temperatures in the tyres behind the safety car,” he added.
“We don’t have the issue with the Mercedes-AMG safety car. On a serious note, the Mercedes-AMG is like five seconds, a lot quicker, than the Aston Martin safety car, which is pretty substantial,” quipped Mercedes driver George Russell, who completed third after Red Bull’s Sergio Perez. “We need to put a Ferrari so it’s then five second faster than the Mercedes car,” Leclerc quipped in reply.
