Abu Dhabi 2021 Vantage F1 safety car for sale
Got half a million spare for the Aston at the centre of the most controversial race in F1 history?
Formula 1 safety cars have no right being as cool as they are. Think about it. Their sole purpose is to slow the world’s fastest cars down to a crawl, which in turn means we hear the inevitable groan from drivers about how their tyres are too cold. Of course, the reality is that a safety car can be a shot in the arm for a dull race, bunching up the pack before the track’s cleared, then the green flags wave and the drivers pile into the first corner. And because the safety car is effectively the leader of the pack while whatever accident is being cleared, manufacturers know that their product will be at the front and centre of the broadcast.
It hasn’t always been as professional as it is today. The first safety car was a Porsche 914, which was called into action during a rain-soaked and chaotic Canadian Grand Prix in 1973. Since then, there have been all sorts of safety cars, from utter sheds like the Opel Vectra to homologation specials like the 993 Porsche 911 GT2. Even Lamborghini Countaches were used as safety cars, appearing on three consecutive occasions at the Monaco Grand Prix. Mercedes brought a level of consistency in 1996 by becoming F1’s sole safety car provider, though in recent years it has shared its race-neutralising duties with an Aston Martin Vantage - like the one we have here.
It may not sound like much, but Aston sharing the safety car billing with Mercedes was big news when the deal was announced in 2021. Mercedes had set the bar high with its safety cars over the years, with an array of AMG models fronting the field when duty called. In fact, the company put so much effort into the programme that it ultimately led to the creation of the Black Series, with both the hyper rare SLK 55 and CLK 63 versions starting life at the sharp end of a Formula 1 grid. So if Aston were to join the safety car ranks, it’d need to do a little more than simply slapping some flashing lights on top of a Vantage and calling it day, not least because an F1 car dawdling is still going at a decent lick.
With that in mind, Aston set about bolting on a carbon splitter, front canards, deeper skirts and a fixed rear wing, while power from the 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 was lifted to 535hp - 25hp more than the road car. Carbon ceramic brakes were carried over from the regular Vantage, only with additional brake ducting to keep them cool over long safety car periods. Other changes, aside from a set of flashing lights, include extra chassis bracing, uprated dampers and tweaks to the steering rack, all of which presumably suited F1 safety car driver veteran Bernd Maylander.
Aston Martin would use a handful of Vantage chassis during the model’s debut season, and they’d have all seen a fair bit of action in 2021. However, chassis ‘SC02’, the one you're looking at, would be involved in arguably the most famous and controversial safety car moment in F1 history, as it was the car that led the field ahead of the final lap shootout for the championship at the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. You’ll probably view that fact differently depending on whether you’re a Max Verstappen or Lewis Hamilton fan, given the race director’s antics while SC02 was at the front of the pack ultimately determined the outcome of the championship - but either way, it’s an incredible piece of memorabilia from arguably the most contentious grand prix in history.
If you’ve ever tried getting your hands on a piece of race-used F1 memorabilia, you’ll know how pricey it is, and this Vantage safety car is no exception. You’ll need £599,990 to call it your own, but it does come with functioning lights and there are loads of special buttons in the cockpit for various safety car-related features. But if that all sounds a bit much and the wounds of Abu Dhabi 2021 have yet to heal, then you can pick up this Vantage F1 Edition, which was effectively a road-going version of the safety car, for less than a fifth of the price, albeit without the blues and twos...
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