Nov.19 (GMM) Last Sunday's Abu Dhabi season finale was a significant moment in the history of the F1 safety car.

The first deployment of the sport's permanent safety car was 250 grands prix ago, at Magny Cours in 1996.

"That was my company car," recalled current safety car driver Bernd Maylander, referring to the C36 AMG used for that race in France.

According to Motorsport-Magazin.com, the car deployed for that debut race even featured Maylander's personalised number plate 'S-BM 300'.

Of the 250 races, the Mercedes safety car ? spanning nine separate models and currently the gull-wing SLS AMG ? was deployed 135 times.

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