"It was like a turtle" - Max Verstappen wants the Aston Martin F1 safety car to speed up

Max Verstappen is not happy with the new Aston Martin safety car's speed during the safety car periods. His views come after the Australian GP saw two safety car periods following Carlos Sainz and Sebastian Vettel's crashes.

During the second safety car period that had most of the field on the hard tires, drivers struggled to generate heat into their tires while driving behind the safety car. Speaking after the race, Max Verstappen said:

“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. 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.”

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Charles Leclerc in agreement with Max Verstappen's claims

Charles Leclerc was in agreement with Max Verstappen about the speed of the safety car. The Ferrari driver had himself suffered from cold tires at the second safety car restart. Speaking about the speed of the safety car, Leclerc said:

“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. 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.”

F1 has used Mercedes AMG safety cars for many years now. With the re-entry of Aston Martin into the sport from the 2021 season, the safety cars have alternated between the two manufacturers. While Mercedes safety cars have not faced much complaints, the Aston Martin ones have been subjected to a lot of criticism by the drivers.