F1 in Hungary: Strategy and fast tire changes make all the difference

> Leclerc was able to keep in front of Piastri at his second stop as well, and both drivers were stationary for just two seconds as their crews swarmed over the cars. But that single stop of Norris' was even faster at 1.9 seconds, and while he was driving slower than his teammate, he held track position at the front and was driving flawlessly.

Wow, I know nothing about F1 racing, but that is a fast tire change. Here's how it works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FE5FGSEQc8Q. Three people on each tire, one single bolt. Full stop over the jack, unbolt, old tire off, new tire on, rebolt, drop and go.

It's insane how fast they do it.

The record is 1.8s. This was after changes were introduced to try to slow down pit stops. I believe in the past signals were sent that the wheels were on before they were fully secured (anticipating that by the time the signal was given to the driver the wheel would be fully secured). A delay was introduced and over a couple of seasons the crews managed to get back to (and beat) their old times.

And there's a lot of redundancy, just waiting to execute the task if anyone or some equipment fails.

On the other hand ... why isn't this fully automated yet?

Because it wouldn’t be a sport

I'm not sure it would be as fast or have anywhere near the same redundancy for the price.

Just locating the wheel in space is non trivial!

Software engineers, ladies and gentleman :P

You could then ask this of all aspects of the sport, and all other sports as well!

Pit stops are a crucial aspect of motorsports; they can make or break a race. So competition in that area is good.

Yeah, I don't see the point of having drivers either.

Given that F1 cars just need to drive around a circuit in good weather conditions, teams could just install a comma 3X self driving system and replace an expensive driver for $1k.

It's fun to compare it with clips of tire changes in past F1 races. There's been a constant evolution in the tire change procedure/dance.

Because spectators don't want to watch that.

Why not make a race entirely of pit stops?

F1 has gotten boring lately. That ought to spice it up!

Perhaps two well-placed grooves in the track could aid with steering with side rails providing DC power?

At one point (oof, one article says 2010) re-fueling went out the window, that's a big time sink.

Or a race with no pit stops. Tire degradation is largely artificial and designed to FIA requirements. They could make tires that lasted an entire race with minimal reduction in grip if they wanted to, but that would remove a lot of strategy.

> Given that F1 cars just need to drive around a circuit in good weather conditions

That wasn't the case until recently.

And it changes things completely for the tire changers. When there's re-fueling, there isn't really any stress on the tire changers. Without it, it's most often all on them.

Life sized self-driving slot car race—could be interesting as its own thing.

This exists; they are called sprint races. Sprint races are generally a stepping stone to the bigger leagues because it doesn't require the same type of manpower and coordination to be competitive. A lot of spec series (like the MX-5 series that runs with IMSA sometimes) tend to be this way to lower the barrier of entry.

It's a real shame that F1 has become so conservative about wet races. I'd love to see something like the Massa/Kubica battle at Fuji in 2007 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnxUu36-uYw) happen today.

There is an AI powered autonomous racing series...

https://youtu.be/feTxamTHQAA?si=SVlFGU1b8ZaLZsw_

The MX-5 Cup series is better than F1 anyway :D

F1 racing used to be so much better.

Less fires too!

This is really old now (I think 2000s) but even the jacks they lift the car with doesn’t drop with gravity alone - that’s too slow. They have some mechanism that actively drops the jack, so they can pull it away faster.

They specify tires that don’t last a full race and have to be changed because the pit stop as it is is such a core aspect of race strategy.

Simulate the entire thing. Output a number saying which car won.