Where the safety car comes out: every circuit ranked

Published Invalid Date · figures as of the 2026 Singapore Grand Prix, round 17.

A safety car has appeared in about half of all races since 2010. Where it appears is far from even: at the Marina Bay Street Circuit in Singapore it has come out in 13 of 17 races, at the Hungaroring in 6 of 41.

The figures come from this site’s lap data, which marks every safety-car period since the safety car became a regular tool in 1993. A race counts once however many periods it had; the periods are counted separately.

By circuit

Circuits with at least eight races of lap data:

Circuit	Races with a safety car	Share	Periods
Marina Bay Street Circuit, Singapore	13 of 17	76%	22
Sochi Autodrom	5 of 8	63%	7
Baku City Circuit	6 of 10	60%	11
Albert Park, Melbourne	17 of 29	59%	30
Autódromo José Carlos Pace, Interlagos	17 of 35	49%	26
Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps	19 of 40	48%	22
Circuit Paul Ricard	2 of 12	17%
Hungaroring	6 of 41	15%
Circuit de Nevers Magny-Cours	1 of 18	6%
Autódromo do Estoril	0 of 13	0%
Adelaide Street Circuit	0 of 11	0%
Autódromo Internacional Nelson Piquet, Jacarepaguá	0 of 8	0%

Street circuits with walls close to the track (Singapore, Baku, Melbourne) need a safety car to clear a stopped car; wide permanent circuits with run-off (Paul Ricard, Hungaroring) let marshals work under a local yellow. Estoril, Adelaide and Jacarepaguá last held races in the 1990s, when the safety car was used sparingly, which keeps their counts at zero.

By season

Season	Races with a safety car	Periods	Red flags	Laps behind the safety car
1995	1 of 17	1	4	0.5%
2000	6 of 17	7	1	3.1%
2005	7 of 19	8	0	3.7%
2010	12 of 19	20	1	9.6%
2015	10 of 19	13	0	6.5%
2020	12 of 17	19	4	10.4%
2022	15 of 22	20	3	8.2%
2024	8 of 24	13	3	4.7%
2025	12 of 24	17	0	7.1%
2026, 17 races	8 of 17	12	4	7.0%

The jump came in 2010: twelve races with a safety car, twenty periods, nearly a tenth of all laps. The reasons are a longer calendar with more street circuits, the end of refuelling (cars started heavy, and first-lap incidents multiplied), and a lower threshold for deploying the safety car after a run of serious accidents. The virtual safety car, introduced in 2015, took over the smaller incidents, which is one reason the share has not risen further.

What it means for strategy

A pit stop under the safety car costs about half the time of a stop under green flags. At a circuit with a 60% chance of a safety car, teams plan a stop window around it; at one with a 15% chance, they do not. Each race page shows the safety-car laps on the lap chart and in the “how the race was won” section, and each circuit page shows how the winners there have stopped since 1994.