Safety automotive periods in Formula 1 are going to look barely different this season as Aston Martin ended its temporary five-year tenure because the championship’s safety automotive provider alongside Mercedes. Coincidentally, an Aston Martin dealer listed one in all the Vantage safety cars on the market. This specific two-seater may be probably the most controversial vehicle to ever lead the F1 field, because it served through the title-deciding 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. I would not blame Lewis Hamilton for purchasing this automotive simply to destroy it.
Aston Martin Leeds is listing the 2018 Vantage F1 Edition on the market at £599,990 (or $810,000). Despite producing over 500 horsepower from its twin-turbocharged V8 engine, F1 drivers often complained that the Vantage was too slow to be a security automotive. Max Verstappen called the Aston Martin “a turtle” after the 2022 Australian Grand Prix. F1 cars aren’t designed to waddle around a track at pedestrian speeds, so the security automotive is often going flat-out. For the 2025 season, Aston Martin will replace its original safety automotive with a more moderen model. The brand new Vantage encompasses a more powerful engine, which produced over 650 hp.
This Vantage is a chunk of controversial F1 history
The Autotrader listing notes that this Vantage appeared at 20 Grand Prix weekends between 2021 and 2023. As with all safety automotive, it performed the identical duty for Formula 2 and Formula 3, the world championship’s support series over those seasons. The listing added:
“This automotive was used for the controversial deployment that saw Max Verstappen win the Abu Dhabi GP, and ultimately the 2021 World Drivers’ Championship ahead of Lewis Hamilton on the ultimate lap of the race.
We’ll leave you to your personal conclusions of what must have happened at this race, but that is the Safety Automotive that created history in some of the memorable season finales.”
In fairness to the Vantage, it played no role in actually making the choice to restart the race with only a single lap to go. It was all Michael Masi. The Australian race official was unexpectedly thrust into the position of F1 race director after the unexpected death of Charlie Whiting on the eve of the 2019 season. Masi never gained the authority that Whiting had inside the paddock after three seasons.
To create a more amenable working relationship, the teams encouraged Masi to open Pandora’s box. Through the later stages of the 2021 season, Masi began openly negotiating officiating decisions with the teams. The team principals were generally pleased with the “common sense” approach that seemed more straightforward than letting the race stewards do their job. Nonetheless, Masi saw he moved an inch and took a mile. With that positive feedback, he began officiating the title fight between Verstappen and Hamilton with a gladiatorial “allow them to race” approach. When each title contenders entered the Abu Dhabi season finale tied at the highest of the points standings, Masi declared he’d do all the things in his power to finish the race under green flag conditions. The team bosses agreed. We all know what happened from there.
This Article First Appeared At www.jalopnik.com
