Bernd Maylander has led over 900 laps in F1 history but hasn’t driven for any team in his 22-year-long career. Instead, he has been the safety car driver since the year 2000 and has shared the track with some of the biggest legends in the sport’s history like Lewis Hamilton and Michael Schumacher.
Whenever the safety car is brought out, it is Maylander’s responsibility to maintain the pace and make sure drivers behind him control their speed. The race leader is the one who is immediately behind him, and different drivers approach this situation differently. A lot of people feel that Max Verstappen has always been very aggressive when behind the SC, but Maylander shared his thoughts on who the toughest to deal with is.
Fans may be surprised to hear that Hamilton made Maylander’s job very difficult at times. According to him, the Brit is always pushing, which is challenging for him to deal with since he’s the one who has to maintain pace.
Lewis Hamilton gets very close to the safety car
Maylander described Hamilton as tough to deal with. However, the 51-year-old feels that Schumacher was relatively very calm. On the contrary, he revealed that Valtteri Bottas was very calm and rarely pushed beyond limits when he brought his car out.
“I have to say, sometimes it is quite difficult with Lewis,” he said. “Because, yeah. He’s always pushing, accelerating, braking. He gets very close to the car. Michael was quite calm. But he was also quite tough. Valtteri Bottas, he’s really quite cool behind me. He is always using the same distance. He keeps distance to the safety car.”
Maylander went on to insist that Verstappen is also not very hard on him. The Dutchman does not push him as much as Hamilton or Schumacher did.
“Max, I’d have to say as well, he is not really hard pushing me. Nico Rosberg, he was also very quiet behind me, so he was always at the right distance.”
Maylander then went on to talk about another driver who made life hard for him. It was none other than four-time World Champion Sebastian Vettel, whom he compared to Hamilton. However, he insists that the latter is the toughest driver he has had to deal with.
Also read: Lewis Hamilton believes Sebastian Vettel will be back just as Nico Hulkenberg
