F1 PITSTOPS: GONE IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE
Pitstops can shape the outcome of races but, equally, teams barely within sight of each other on track are fighting to be fastest in the pits. The attention to detail and potential for things to go wrong is just astounding
The pressure is as high as the stakes. Formula 1 pitstops are a miracle of precision under stress: an army of 23 mechanics changing four tyres in less than three seconds, a process choreographed and endlessly practiced in pursuit of near-robotic levels of repeatable perfection.
Get it right, as in Russia this year – when Lewis Hamilton used the Virtual Safety Car and a 2.6-second stop to usurp Charles Leclerc’s lead – and you can be victorious. Get it wrong and the consequences can be severe, as in Monaco 2016, when a last-minute decision to switch compounds cost Daniel Ricciardo the win: he arrived as the mechanics were still scrambling in the cramped confines of the garage to locate the required rubber.
“They should have been ready. It hurts,” said Ricciardo afterwards, and the tone of his comment emphasises an essential truth of F1 pitstops. They’ve become an element of racing that everyone seems to take for granted, despite being one of the most perilous of variables. In Ricciardo’s case this botched stop was arguably the beginning of the end for his relationship with the team, which deteriorated further as he grew increasingly convinced he wasn’t getting the attention he merited.
But while the record time is an incredible 1.82 seconds, at the 2019 Brazilian Grand Prix by Red Bull on Max Verstappen’s car (the third consecutive record set by this team) – you might be surprised to learn that headline times are not what the teams focus on.
“The most important thing is consistency,” says Dave Redding, team manager of Williams – a team which, despite propping up the order on track, is generally among the quickest to service its drivers.
“The [pitstop] world records have come down year on year – and we are now sub-two-seconds. But the whole point of it is delivering a time that you think you can do for your strategy.
“Occasionally you will go quicker, but if you say it’s
2.5 seconds or three seconds or whatever the team decides, the important thing is to hit that time. Then you’ll work everything else out from around it – what do I need to do to achieve that consistently? It’s about car design, human approach, how people have trained – it’s everything.”
To reach the level expected during the past season of turning a car around in between two and three seconds, each mechanic’s performance has to be instinctive. Any issue requiring them to react, think and evaluate can potentially double the stop time, which can be disastrous for track position.
“Everything is happening under the time it takes for a human to react,” Redding says. “So by the time someone has thought, ‘Oh, I’m not sure that’s correct,’ that’s probably 300-400 milliseconds, by which time things have already moved on and potentially the car has moved on.
“An easy one: the wheelguns going round in the wrong
direction. That’s not obvious straight away to the person – so he’s got to think, ‘Oh, hang on a minute.’ And then you’ve got to correct it and go through the process again. Each time anybody is thinking or has to correct something, that’s going to be one second gone – which is 50% of your time.”
The teams use new wheel nuts for every race to avoid any potential problems arising from wear. The real challenge is in getting them properly seated and “as tight as you can know”. But the list of other potential issues is extensive because each corner of the car requires a number of separate operations to come together in a fluid whole: the car has to be jacked up quickly and precisely; each wheelnut has to be undone and then the old wheel removed; the new wheel has to be seated with speed and precision – which is particularly difficult – and then the nuts have to be re-seated and tightened properly.
“Some of it is the [pneumatic] guns going in the wrong directions, so you go to undo it and you actually do the wheel up,” Redding adds.
“Some of it is the nuts are crossed. It could be the car is slightly out of position, so the wheel doesn’t come off and it catches, or the other wheel going on catches. Or the car rocks on the jacks.”
Without discipline and procedure, errors can creep in elsewhere too. Williams experienced the nightmare scenario in 2015 in Belgium, where it sent Valtteri Bottas out with mismatched compounds – three softs and a medium. Redding says this couldn’t happen again.
“There’s just numerous checks built into the process [now] before the tyres end up on a stack that can go on the car,” he says. “Each stack has a light next to it, so if the radio breaks down or there’s a loss of communications, the driver comes in and that light is on and those are the tyres on the car.
“If that light changes, so we change – when the car’s coming down the pit lane, there’s a warning tone to say we’ve changed the [selected set of] tyres.”
For the drivers, it’s about hitting their marks – or if they can’t, since F1 pitlanes vary in configuration and surface quality, they must arrive in a consistent pattern so the process can be adjusted. At every race weekend a team will practice pitstops and rehearse drivers overshooting or falling short of the marks.
Arguably the most important element of all is the mechanics who perform the stop. Teams treat them like athletes, making cardio and gym classes and other exercises like Pilates part of their work time.
“FOR THE DRIVERS, IT’S ABOUT HITTING THEIR MARKS – OR IF THEY CAN’T, SINCE F1 PITLANES VARY IN CONFIGURATION AND SURFACE QUALITY, THEY MUST ARRIVE IN A CONSISTENT PATTERN SO THE PROCESS CAN BE ADJUSTED” DAVE REDDING
They’ll also provide support in terms of personal health, nutrition and hydration, and the expectation is that members of the pitcrew have to stay in shape.
Fatigue, jet lag and illness are all attendant risks of the globetrotting F1 calendar, so most squads have a “substitute bench” to replace anyone who experiences health issues or needs to take personal leave. To ensure consistency the teams build systems which are robust enough to withstand personnel swaps, even employing biomechanical analysis to build a picture of best practice (or winkle out previously invisible mistakes).
And when a squad isn’t fighting for wins on track, swift and consistent pitstops can be a powerful moralebooster for the core of the travelling team. A strong, cohesive unit will also be an asset when the factory delivers a more competitive car, the better to translate latent potential into results.
“It’s all relative, but when you’re at the back it’s nice to have some things to cling on to – to keep everybody involved and motivated,” Redding says. “And, obviously, they feel like they’re contributing to the result, which they are.”
Given stable technical rules, pitstops grow faster by increments as teams develop new methodologies and chip away at impediments to progress. We’re likely to see that process begin again in 2021, when pitcrews will have to adapt to the presence of new mandatory aerodynamic furniture as well as 18-inch wheels. And they’ll have to do so without the bespoke equipment developed at great cost over the decade since refuelling was banned – the rule change that kickstarted the quest for faster wheel changes.
“The wheel wake control devices, I think they will have an effect,” Redding says.
“The wheels are going to be heavier and have slightly different circumference. We will have to go back to the drawing board and start with the biomechanics again.
“We’ll probably need different training – because they will be using different muscles and strength, so you’ve got all that to take into account. The last thing in the mix will be the standardisation of equipment.”
So while we wait to see if cost-controlled pit equipment has a beneficial effect on the racing as well as the balance sheet post-2020, savour this last season of the pitlane’s technological arms race…
“THE NEW WHEELS ARE GOING TO BE HEAVIER AND HAVE SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT CIRCUMFERENCE. WE WILL HAVE TO GO BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD AND START WITH THE BIOMECHANICS AGAIN” DAVE REDDING