Today, the Official F1® Safety Car is such an integral part of Formula 1® that it’s hard to imagine a time when it didn’t exist. However, this was the case for most of the championship’s 75-year history.

Its first appearance, at the 1973 Canadian Grand Prix, was certainly an inauspicious one. When the Safety Car was deployed, it picked up the wrong car to lead, causing chaos with the final results.

After a handful of appearances throughout the 1970s and 80s at the Monaco Grand Prix, it wasn’t until 1993 that a Safety Car was mandated to appear at all F1® races. For three years, race organisers were responsible for supplying the car and crew.

All that changed in 1996, when Mercedes-Benz was granted the exclusive contract for supplying the Official FIA F1® Safety Car.

Mercedes-AMG Safety Cars in Formula 1®

The first Mercedes-AMG Safety Car was the Mercedes-Benz C 36 AMG. It completed the 1996 season before being replaced by the Mercedes-Benz CLK 55 AMG (C208) for the following three seasons. In 1999, a single conversation began a partnership that continues to this day.

At the San Marino Grand Prix in Imola, young racing driver Bernd Mayländer received an invitation for coffee from the then F1® race director, Charlie Whiting. Bernd was already part of the Mercedes-Benz Motorsport family, having first competed in the DTM in 1995 before driving the Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR in the GT1 World Championship in 1997 and 1998. It was his performances in the Porsche Supercup, which ran on the F1® support bill, that ultimately caught Charlie’s eye.

“Charlie asked if I wanted to be the Safety Car driver for the upcoming Formula 1® season,” Bernd says. “I could gain experience in Formula 3000 on the very same day. Two hours later, I was in the car and drove my very first race.”

Bernd spent 1999 learning the ropes as the Safety Car driver for the Formula 3000 support series before graduating to the premier category for the first race of the 2000 season, the Australian Grand Prix, where he’d be driving the new CL 55 AMG.

Peter Tibbetts, who already had experience as a Safety Car co-driver, tried to calm Bernd’s nerves, telling him it was the same job as in Formula 3000, just with a different race time. Of course, Bernd was still nervous. “I was deployed during the race as well. But you have to do your job,” Bernd says.

A quarter-century in the F1® Safety Car

Even after 25 years and leading more than 1400 laps, those butterflies still haven’t completely disappeared for Bernd. “I wouldn’t say I’m nervous, but I think every athlete needs adrenaline,” he says. “It gives you focus, and the start is always quite tough because there's a high chance of an accident happening.”

Over the past quarter-century, Bernd has spent more time in the latest and greatest machinery from Mercedes-Benz than almost anyone else on earth. His duties during a race weekend, however, aren’t limited to F1® Safety Car periods; there are also special sessions allocated in the lead-up to allow the Safety and Medical Car drivers to get up to speed and practice procedures.

The incredible pace of F1® development has seen Mercedes-Benz constantly push the boundaries of production car performance. There have been several significant milestones that have allowed Bernd to successfully lead a pack of F1® cars – now several seconds faster on each lap than they were 30 years ago.

“I have to really push the car nearly to the limit,” he explains. “It’s not a qualifying lap, so it’s always two or three per cent inside this limit. I have to get prepared not just for one lap but maybe five, 10, 15 laps. You never know what happens.”

Following the CL 55, a new model was introduced nearly every two years, but big steps were taken with the supercharged Mercedes-Benz SL 55 AMG (2001–02), the super-focused CLK 63 AMG (2006–07) and the SLS AMG (2010–12).

The evolution of the Official F1® Safety Car

Since 2015, Bernd has driven the Mercedes-AMG GT S, the Mercedes-AMG GT R and the Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series – one of the fastest cars on Germany’s famous Nürburgring Nordschleife circuit. Since 2021, in his role as Official FIA F1® Safety Car Driver, he has completed his laps not only in cars bearing the three-pointed star, but also in an Aston Martin Vantage, which is used alternately with the Mercedes-AMG.

“Every time a new car gets introduced, I think that must be it! But then the engineers keep developing for the next generation," Bernd says. "The CLK 63 was an incredible car in the Black Series edition. The SLS was the first car fully developed by AMG. The GT Black Series we have now is a fantastic track car. Overall through the years there have been some outstanding cars.

“The Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series is being approved for the road, but with the aero and power package, the transaxle and traction control, it's designed especially for high-speed use on a racetrack.”

Equally substantial changes have taken place in terms of the monitoring equipment available to Bernd and his co-driver, Richard Darker. Twenty-five years ago, there was a single television set sitting outside the car, whereas now there are two monitors inside the car, as well as GPS mapping and information about the g-forces a driver would experience in the event of an accident.

Richard is a crucial piece of the puzzle. “He’s like the co-pilot in an aeroplane,” says Bernd. “It’s always better to have someone next to you if you are on the track, so four eyes and ears see and hear more. He is among others responsible for the lights and the radio system.”

Despite being paid to drive incredible cars at top speed around the best racetracks in the world, Bernd says he prefers a quiet weekend: "For me, the best races are those without a Safety Car, because that means nothing dangerous has happened on track.”

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