The Aston Martin Vantage safety car, driven by former DTM star Bernd Maylander, was pressed into action twice during Sunday’s 58-lap race for an off by Carlos Sainz and a crash for Sebastian Vettel.
But as most drivers were on the hard tyre at the time, they struggled to get any heat into their rubber behind the Vantage, which is slower than the Mercedes it splits safety car duties with.
Aston Martin and Mercedes started sharing the provision of official course cars last year, Aston delivering a 4.0L twin-turbo V8 Vantage producing 528bhp.
For 2022 Mercedes introduced a new 730bhp Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series, which was used in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. The Mercedes is much closer to a pure track car than the Aston and is believed to be around five seconds faster per lap.
Verstappen, who took both restarts from second place behind leader Charles Leclerc before his retirement, said the Aston “was like a turtle” that prevented drivers from restarting the race with sufficient…
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