The Formula One safety car has had a chequered history, dating back to 1973, when a taxi cab-yellow Porsche 914, with a massive flag attached to its trunk, lined up at the Austrian Grand Prix as the first-ever safety car. The aim? In the days before GPS tracking and tags and live timing systems, keeping track of the cars’ correct track positions was a great challenge. The Porsche 914’s intervention was supposed to solve this issue. Not surprisingly, it didn’t get the job done, as the matter was far more complex than two people in a yellow Porsche could solve.
Â
