MAX VERSTAPPEN may be rivals with Mercedes on the track, but he does likes the company when it comes to their safety car.
On the other hand, the F1 world champion blasted Aston Martin’s safety vehicle as a “turtle”.
Mercedes and Aston Martin share safety car duties, with the former being on duty for the first two races in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
But over the weekend in Melbourne it was the Aston Martin car on duty, and separate incidents involving Carlos Sainz and Sebastian Vettel saw it called onto the track twice.
And Verstappen fumed at the car for being too slow, which meant the Red Bull man struggled to get any grip from his tyres.
Verstappen seethed, as per Motorsport: “There’s so little grip and also the safety car was driving so slow, it was like a turtle. Unbelievable.
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“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.”
It’s claimed the Mercedes car is around five seconds per lap faster than the Aston Martin that was used in Melbourne over the weekend.
And Verstappen continued his rant by saying: “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.
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“It’s pretty terrible the way we are driving behind the safety car at the moment.”
Unsurprisingly Mercedes driver George Russell sided with Verstappen’s view that the Merc is quicker.
He joked: “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.”
