Maylander is also complemented by a team of four engineers at track, plus an additional team working remotely, with the German spending almost as much time working on his Vantage’s set-up as the racing drivers that he’s at the track to protect – and for good reason, as he explains…
“You start like in a proper first practice session of a race weekend – you start to feel the car, to set up your car,” says Maylander, whose on-track weekend begins with Thursday’s high-speed track tests.
“That’s what we are doing on a Thursday, tyre pressures, these kind of things. And mostly on a Thursday, the grip level is not as high as on a Friday or Saturday or even on a Sunday. So you have to set up your car a little bit to bring the car in the right balance, to have a good, perfect feeling inside the car.
READ MORE: Vettel and Schumacher to form ‘super team’ as they sign up for popular motorsport event
“And then for sure you’re going step by step on a higher level – because to drive on a higher level should be done in an easy way, so you can still be focused on what’s going on around you. That’s what you need as well in a race, to have a good feeling, to not feel uncomfortable in the car. So you have to be comfortable and then you can even be more focused on what you have to do in your Safety Car job. That’s very important.”
Childishly (and sheepishly) I can’t help but ask Maylander if getting to drive the Safety Car is, well, fun – at least in the less high-stakes moments. Bernd laughs loudly and replies simply “absolutely!” before adding: “But for sure, one more very important thing is to not drive over the limits, because your limit should be always under 100 percent, because you’re winning nothing – just do your job as good as possible and still enjoy it.”
