The Evolution of Formula 1 Pit Stops: Speed and Consistency

By
at Internationaled.org

Published: September 18, 2014

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A popular military saying goes, "Slow is smooth; smooth is fast." That is certainly true for Formula One pit stops, where more than 20 people wait motionless as a race car flies toward them at highway speed before they burst into action, changing four tyres and making adjustments to the car in under three seconds.



If any one of those people—including the driver—are off by a few centimetres, a whole race and weeks of work can be destroyed faster than you can say, "Mark Webber's wheel is loose!"

As legendary American sheriff Wyatt Earp once said, per Ludovica Iaccino of the International Business Times, "You need to take your time in a hurry."

Last season, Red Bull set a record with a sub-two-second pit stop at the United States Grand Prix in Austin. For this year, however, race team manager Jonathan Wheatley told Bleacher Report he was more interested in consistently quick stops, rather than occasional blindingly fast ones, even though he previously told the Red Bull website that the team had gone even quicker in practice.



So far, that seems to be the case. No new records have been set, but—and this is just my anecdotal analysis—it seems there have been fewer mistakes during stops up and down the pit lane this year (Lewis Hamilton may disagree).

These two-second, highly choreographed dances represent more than just the teams' natural desires to best one another. They also represent the culmination of a century of innovation in keeping race cars running for a full grand prix distance.

In the early years of the 20th century, when races were run from city to city, mechanics rode in the car with the drivers and repairs were made on the side of the road, as necessary.



Donington Park held its first grand prix in 1935. In those years before the Second World War, Adolf Hitler pumped money into the German racing teams, Mercedes and...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Formula 1

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