Since last year, Aston Martin and Mercedes have safety cars in Formula 1. Aston Martin F1 is driven by former DTM driver Bernd Maylander, who did his job twice during Sunday’s race at the Australian Grand Prix. Some drivers were not happy with the performance of the Aston Martin F1, like Max Verstappen who called it a “turtle”.

Most drivers used hard tires at the time the safety car came out on the track, so drivers had big trouble warming them up by driving behind the Vantage which is obviously slower than the Mercedes. This annoyed Max Verstappen who said after the race: “There’s so little grip and also the safety car was driving so slow, it was like a turtle. Unbelievable, 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.”

Mercedes driver George Russell was harsher: “We have no problem with when the safety car is Mercedes-AMG. One serious note, Mercedes-AMG is five seconds faster than Aston Martin, and that’s very significant.”

The Aston Martin F1 is powered by a 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8 engine with 528 hp (388 kW) and 505 lb-ft (685 Nm) of torque. Power is transmitted to the rear wheels via an 8-speed ZF automatic transmission. It reaches 62 mph in 3.6 seconds with a top speed of 195 mph (314 km / h).

The Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series, which is also used as a safety car, is powered by a 4.0L twin-turbo V8 engine with 730 hp (537 kW) and 590 lb-ft (800 Nm) of torque. Power is transmitted to the rear wheels via a 7-speed twin-clutch automatic transmission. It reaches 62 mph in 3.2 seconds with a top speed of 202 mph (325 km / h).

The winner was Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc, second was Sergio Pérez (Red Bull) and third was George Russell (Mercedes).

Source: Motorsport