Within Formula 1, coverage often focuses on historic cars hammered down for record sums. Old race monsters once campaigned by the late Ayrton Senna or the legendary Michael Schumacher are prized collector pieces for the world’s wealthy. Recently, though, a very different piece of F1 history went up for sale: for just over seven hundred thousand euros you can become the owner of the Aston Martin safety car that played a decisive role in Max Verstappen’s first title.
The Aston Martin dealer in Leeds, UK is offering the Vantage — the car that helped decide the 2021 world championship — for sale. The car served as the safety car and was deployed at twenty Grands Prix. The odometer reads 12,476 miles, roughly 20,000 kilometres. The sports car — also signed by drivers Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll — is fitted with a 4.0-litre twin‑turbo V8 producing 500 hp. A standard Vantage changes hands for around £100,000; this example is expected to fetch six times that, the equivalent of approximately €720,000.
F1 history
That hefty asking price is entirely down to the key role this ex-safety car played in the decisive 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Lewis Hamilton led the final race and looked on course for an eighth world title, but in the closing stages Nicholas Latifi crashed. The Williams driver brought out the safety car — the Aston Martin in question — which allowed Verstappen to pounce on his British rival with fresher tyres. It handed the Dutchman his first Formula 1 world title.
Whoever ultimately drives the Aston Martin home shouldn’t expect compliments from Verstappen. The Red Bull driver has routinely criticised the pace of the Vantage safety car in recent years: “Unbelievable, it was like a tortoise,” he complained after the 2022 Australian GP. The British sports-car manufacturer no longer supplies cars to Formula 1; from 2026 Mercedes-Benz will once again be the exclusive supplier of the safety and medical cars.
