To gain position or even win races, teams sometimes bank on the intervention of the safety car, which is used to neutralize a race during bad weather or accidents.

Although it may be one of the deciding factors in the outcome of a race it is one of the least-known aspects of racing. The safety car driver, Bernd Maylander, is the least-known driver in a Grand Prix.

In describing his job, Maylander said that the decision to deploy the safety car is not his, but that of Charlie Whiting, the race director.

In fact, Maylander said he was so busy driving his car, a Mercedes SL 63 AMG, as fast as possible that in Japan in 2008 he did not see the accident behind him between Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber.

''I looked in the mirror and said, 'Hey, two cars are gone? What's happened?''' he recalled. ''Most of the time I look in the mirror, but not in that corner. So I didn't see the accident, I saw it on the big screen in the replay.''

The safety car is used to neutralize the race, by controlling the speed, while track marshals remove wrecks and clean up the track, or during a period of adverse weather. Drivers are not allowed to pass behind the safety car, and the leading driver must keep a distance of three to five meters, or 10 to 17 feet, behind the safety car.

Maylander, who has driven the safety car since 2000, waits at the end of the pit lane throughout the race. He listens for radio orders from the race director, following the race on one of the big trackside screens.

''The normal procedure is that I get 'Standby,' and then the next radio contact from race control is, 'Stand down,' which means the situation is all right, nothing happens, or if not, I get, 'Deploy safety car,''' he said.

The pace looks slow on television, but Maylander is driving as fast as he can.

''In Fuji we did more than 250 kph on the main straight,'' he said, ''But it is safe because at the same place a Formula One car is going more than 300 kph.''

The safety car is a road car modified to reduce its weight and improve braking and durability. Its 525-horsepower V8 engine has only two-thirds of the power of a Formula 1 car.

When he is called out, Maylander knows that the race may just have been ruined for some drivers or improved for others.

''You don't think about it,'' he said. ''Yes, when the safety car has to go on the track - for some teams you can destroy the strategy of the team, but that is not up to me, I have to do my job. Never has a driver come up to me and said, 'Why'd you go on the track?'''

He is, however, well aware of how the drivers feel. After karting in the 1980s, he moved to Formula Ford, then drove in the Porsche Carrera Cup, the German touring car series and the FIA GT Championship. In 2000, he won the 24-hour race at the Nurburgring, in Germany.

Drivers said that how they feel about safety car interventions depends on how it effects their position. ''It depends if you're lucky or not,'' said the former driver Jarno Trulli.

Maylander takes a little sneaky satisfaction from the attention he receives for entering a race. ''It's a good feeling to stay ahead of them,'' he said, ''to be in front of the leading Formula One car.''