McLaren star inches away from embarrassing prang

Lewis Hamilton came within inches of driving into the back of the F1 Safety Car at Hockenheim on Sunday.

The Indy reports how Lewis was a very lucky boy:

Supercar selected for safety role in German championship

Audi’s R8 supercar - as driven by Cristiano Ronaldo; well, the normal road-going version, at least - is to be used in Germany’s DTM championship, as its official safety car.

“There were not many modifications required… because the R8 possesses the genes of a perfect sports car,” said Werner Frowein, managing director of quattro GmbH. A car with genes? Very strange.

As the photo shows, the special R8 is equipped with roof lights, plus special paintwork and DTM graphics. It has to be the best-looking safety car we’ve ever seen. Prior to the R8, DTM’s official safety car was a Mercedes C63 AMG. As you probably know, F1’s official safety car is currently a Merc (a modified SL63 AMG). We’d take the Audi, any day.

See another pic below:

F1 takes steps to avoid another Lewis/Kimi incident

F1 is prepared to have a new safety car system in place for the next GP, at Magny-Cours on 22 June.

When the safety car is deployed, the drivers will receive a message by race control and will then activate a speed limiter on their cars. A trial of the new system will be held before the race.