Top five safety car drifts

Being a safety car driver sounds like fun, but in general it involves a lot of waiting around doing nothing interspersed with brief flurries of frantic action.

Little wonder, then, that when the safety car is unleashed the drivers tend to want to have a bit of fun. Here are the five best bits of safety car sliding YouTube has to offer.

Our first is our most recent, captured during qualifying for this year's Le Mans 24hr, with Yannick Dalmas having a massive moment in an Audi R8.

Bernd Maylander has been F1's safety car driver forever, and when it gives him the chance to fry tyres in AMG's finest, you can't blame him for liking the gig.

Apologies for the terrible video quality, but here's Bernd again hazing tyres in a Mercedes-Benz CL55 AMG back in the day.

Our most unusual contender is this Nissan X-Trail, that got w-a-y out of shape while leading the field during a GT race in China.

Finally, BMW supplies course and safety cars to the Moto GP, and it must also face a very hefty tyre bill at season's end.