Yahoo Autos This Is Aston Martin's New Formula 1 Safety Car
Mercedes has provided the lone official safety car for every Formula 1 season since 1996. This year, that changes.
Aston Martin has announced that its Vantage will officially join the Mercedes AMG GT R as an official safety car of F1. Because an F1 safety car is required to keep up relatively quick speeds for a pace car, this particular Vantage has been modified to produce an additional 24 horsepower, pushing the total to 528 and the car's 0-60 time to a quick 3.5 seconds. Additional modifications have increased stiffness and front downforce, all making the car faster than its road-going counterpart despite its massive, roof-mounted light bar.
Aston Martin will also provide an official F1 medical car, a duty that will be filled by the DBX crossover. The crossover will be in a role Mercedes had filled in past years with different variations of AMG wagons, but its combination of storage space and an absurd 542 horsepower make it an excellent fit for the role.
Both cars are painted in the new shade of green featured on the company's new racing car, a blue-hued take on the traditional British Racing Green meant to pay homage to Aston Martin's racers in the company's late 1950s glory days. While the racing car features sponsor-friendly pink accents, the safety cars will instead be highlighted by a shock of yellowish green, the shade the company used on all of its outgoing Vantage GT cars that featured in the FIA World Endurance Championship.
Just as in past years, the safety car will be driven by Bernd Maylander. The medical car will remain in the steady hands of Alan van der Merwe, the first responder who got to Romain Grosjean just seconds after his harrowing wreck in Bahrain.
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