Paris—Blink and you miss it. In the last few weeks, the cutting-edge of Formula One technology, coupled with old-fashioned muscle hand-eye co-ordination, has witnessed record-breaking pit stops.
At the British Grand Prix at Silverstone in mid-July, Red Bull manage to change the four wheels of Pierre Gasly’s car in a mind-boggling 1.91 seconds.
However, last weekend at the German Grand Prix in Hockenheim, the lightning-fast maneuver was made to look almost pedestrian when th Red Bull team got race winner Max Verstappen rebooted in a new world record time of a staggering 1.88 seconds.
“It’s so fast that you do not even have time to see the guys change the wheels,” said Gasly.
“You are focused on the light (which tells the driver that he can start off again) you are already pressing on the accelerator. It is an incredible job on the part of the mechanics.”
Until this season, the previous record was 1.92 seconds, jointly held by Red Bull at the 2013 US Grand Prix on the car of Australian driver Mark Webber and Williams at the European Grand Prix in 2016 in Azerbaijan with Brazil’s Felipe Massa at the wheel.
“Going under two seconds is difficult because we are touching the limits of human performance,” said Red Bull boss Christian Horner.
The modern idea of a pit stop was first carried out by the Brabham team in the 1982 season who used it at the Austrian Grand Prix in August that year.
At the time, besides changing the tires in about seven seconds, cars were also refueled which took around 15 seconds in total.