Max Verstappen: the Aston Martin safety car is way too “slow”
The safety car entered the track twice during the Australian Grand Prix this Sunday, and for Red Bull driver Max Verstappen, its speed was way too slow.
This Sunday, Dutch driver Max Verstappen experienced a frustrating race. Fighting for second place behind a calm Charles Leclerc, the Red Bull driver repeated the scenario from Bahrain a few weeks earlier with a retirement on the 39th lap. In addition to mechanical issues with the RB18, Max Verstappen complained about the slowness of the car in Melbourne.
Since last season, Aston Martin and Mercedes have been the two suppliers of the safety cars. However, the Mercedes AMG GT used in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia is much faster than its Aston Martin counterpart. During the Australian Grand Prix, the Aston Martin had to appear on track twice: once for the off-track excursion of Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz, and a second time after the accident involving German driver Sebastian Vettel.
During these two appearances, Max Verstappen found himself right behind Charles Leclerc and could have been much more formidable at the restart. However, the Dutchman claims that the slowness of the safety car caused some problems for the drivers to keep their tires warm.
« There is so little grip and the safety car was driving so slowly, it looked like a turtle. Unbelievable. » lamented the driver. « Driving at 140 [km/h] in a straight line when there was no crashed car, I don’t understand why we were going so slowly. We need to investigate. ».
“Definitely, the Mercedes safety car is much faster thanks to more aerodynamics, because this Aston Martin is very slow. It really needs more grip because our tires were as cold as stone. The way we’re following the safety car right now is terrible,” he declared.
