As Motorsport.com reported on Thursday, the FIA has made sure that the teams do not use sensors and automatic systems to predict the individual steps of a tire change in order to make them faster.
The FIA expects the Hungarian Grand Prix to have a minimum reaction time for key moments in the stops.
This is 0.15 seconds from noticing that the wheel nuts are fully tightened to instructing the jack to drop the car, and 0.2 seconds from lowering the jacks to receiving the drive signal from the driver.
It is understood that the move came because of concerns from some teams that some rivals may have pushed the envelope with automatic systems that left no margin for error but delivered super-fast times.
McLaren team principal Andreas Seidl said the pit stop changes wouldn’t force his team to do anything else and he welcomed the FIA’s actions.
“The safety of our pit crew is one of the most important things for us as a team,” he said before the Styrian Grand Prix.
“It’s a very competitive battlefield in Formula 1, so I think it’s good to clarify what the FIA expects in order to comply with the rules.
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari SF21, Carlos Sainz Jr., Ferrari SF21, and Pierre Gasly, AlphaTauri AT02, head the line to exit the pits after the red flag in the first quarter
Photo by: Charles Coates / Motorsport Images
“I don’t think that much would change for us because we have always, I would say, been more conservative here to ensure that we don’t endanger anyone in the pit crew.”
While the current pit stop times, where Red Bull regularly stopped under two seconds, had not led to any major incidents, Seidl still thought it better for the FIA to anticipate the problems instead of leaning back.
“One reason we welcome the initiatives on the FIA side is that it is also important to anticipate problems or safety issues and not always wait for them to occur and then react,” he said.
“We are very satisfied with that.”
Seidl said that his team had always tried to agree what was allowed under the regulations for pit stops while ensuring that any system he used did not pose a risk to the crew.
“In the way we pit stops, we pretty much investigate what the regulations allow, but we keep our pit crew safe,” he said.
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