Not the fastest.
Not the most expensive.
📍 ‘The one that everyone prays never appears.’
Mercedes is now in sole charge of keeping F1 safe — and Aston Martin has quietly exited stage left.
❖ The full story
Formula 1 will return to a familiar arrangement this season: Mercedes as the sole supplier of the Safety and Medical Cars, with Aston Martin stepping away after five years of shared duties.
On paper, it’s a commercial footnote. In reality, it closes one of the sport’s more unintentionally comic chapters.
❖ Aston Martin’s debut in 2021 was meant to be glamorous.
Instead, its Vantage quickly gained a reputation for being… enthusiastic but slow.
Heavier than the Mercedes by 45kg, and down 200bhp, it famously earned Max Verstappen’s immortal nickname at Melbourne in 2022: ‘the green turtle.’
‘The safety car was driving so slowly, it was like a turtle. Unbelievable,’ he said — never missing an opportunity to critique stationary objects.
❖ To their credit, Aston Martin took it seriously.
By 2024, the Vantage was uprated to 656bhp, then again to 670bhp in S-spec, complete with aero tweaks and a visible sense of urgency.
But the damage was done. In a sport obsessed with marginal gains, the safety car cannot afford irony.
Mercedes, meanwhile, simply does what Mercedes does. Since 1996, it has owned this role with quiet competence.
The current AMG GT Black Series safety car and GT 63 S medical car combine brutal speed with absolute reliability — which is precisely the point.
❖ Why it matters
The safety car is Formula 1’s credibility test.
Mercedes understands that its job isn’t to impress — it’s to arrive fast, perform flawlessly, and disappear without becoming the story.
📍 ‘Which, in F1, is the highest compliment of all.’
