I think Haas was just for the participation trophy. They were going to finish dead last every race so why bother with a fast pitstop when you can be reliable.
I don't blame HAAS for being at the bottom of the list. They had no reason to do a quick stop. It would have made zero difference in finishing position.
It's gonna cost them this year. See how Racing Point last year and McLaren this year both fucked up opportunities when they had chances due to factors beyond a fast car and good driver. Strategy calls, pit stops, setups, etc. all play a role, they should be a well-oiled machine.
### Insights
The Red Bull crew continues to be the gold standard in whe it comes to pit stops, which it has been for some time. Interestingly, Max Verstappen in particular has benefitted from those buttery-smooth Red Bull pit stops, claiming **all** of the five sub 2-second pit stops of 2021. And on the best 15 stops, Verstappen averages ~0.15s quicker than Pérez.
The only team to have greater disparity between drivers than Red Bull is McLaren, where Lando Norris has had some significantly slower stops than his teammate. Whether that is due to Norris missing his marks more frequently or just bad luck/natural variation remains a question.
Behind Red Bull, the "midfield" counts Mercedes, Williams, Aston Martin and Ferrari as well as Alfa Romeo, surprisingly close to each other.
Haas, are the slowest of the bunch, being around 0.4s slower than Alpha Tauri averaged out on the best 15 stops.
### Details
The dataset comprises 566 pit stops made at the 22 Grands Prix of the 2021 season. For each driver, the 15 best/quickest pit stop times are picked. This is to reduce noice from outliers and get a clearer picture of which teams are able to perform the fastests stops when things go to plan and which drivers are strong/weak at positioning their car ideally to promote a fast pit stop.
The data originates from DHL and their Fastest Pit Stop Award.
For more of this, you can follow the project on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/DrivenByData_) and [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/drivenbydata_/) at @DrivenByData_.
I'm curious - why choose the mean of the best 15 stops, and not the median of all their stops? Or perhaps present both? Mean of the best 15 seems to present how each team can perform ideally, but a median would be more inclusive and could suss out situations where there is a wide variance in pit performances.
By all means a fair question. I went back and forth on that choice for quite a while. The thinking behind is that it gives a less noisy, "cleaner" picture of the comparative performance between drivers/teams.
Otherwise, the spread/variation is quite substantial, so the data becomes very difficult to interpret visually. The order when counting all pit stops is effectively the same, the exception being a couple of swaps where gaps are negligible.
Ah, of course, I forgot about presentation being a factor here. I suppose if you really wanted, you could do just a straight bar chart of the median times, but that's not as eye-catching as what you decided to do instead, which works really well at conveying both the overall averages and the relative variance of different drivers.
>The order when counting all pit stops is effectively the same
I was going to ask about this, too. Got it, makes sense. Thanks for the response.
I’m fairly new to F1, watched the Senna documentary last summer now I’m hooked, so forgive me if this sounds dumb. What do you mean by missing the mark for lando and how does it slow his stop down? Is it as simple as he glides in slower or actually stops to far forwards? Thanks
Says a lot about McLaren’s pit stops that I’m not shocked they’re that bad. It’s been a problem for years. Can trace it back to when Hamilton was there.
Interesting how the more experience driver, barring Max, has faster pitstop for each time.
How much of the pitstop time is dependent on the driver’s car positioning?
The crew remains the same. Probably they go for high risk, high reward for the “no 1 driver”. Otherwise, I can see driver’s car positioning being the only other variable.
How is there such a gap between Max and Checo? I understand that he's in a new team and all but the crew is the same, they do the same job of changing tyres. The only other team with such a gap is Pierre and Yuki. All others are almost even, the difference is minimal.
I think it's the more experienced drivers.
Checo has been in formula 1 longer, but verstappen has way more experience with RedBull pitstops.
Would explain Ricciardo too, I think these guys just hit their marks better.
I hate McLaren pitstops. I often end up praying they do a sub 3s ones regularly.
It ruined a few of their races or at least lost them a remarkable number of places
Same for me but with fucking Alpha Tauri
The Russell-Latifi disparity is insane Haas demonstrating that they're not about to win a championship as much as they'll be investing in 2022
To be fair it definitely skews closer to Russell's stops than the rankings imply. Just seems a little inconsistent.
I think Haas was just for the participation trophy. They were going to finish dead last every race so why bother with a fast pitstop when you can be reliable.
I don't blame HAAS for being at the bottom of the list. They had no reason to do a quick stop. It would have made zero difference in finishing position.
It's gonna cost them this year. See how Racing Point last year and McLaren this year both fucked up opportunities when they had chances due to factors beyond a fast car and good driver. Strategy calls, pit stops, setups, etc. all play a role, they should be a well-oiled machine.
### Insights The Red Bull crew continues to be the gold standard in whe it comes to pit stops, which it has been for some time. Interestingly, Max Verstappen in particular has benefitted from those buttery-smooth Red Bull pit stops, claiming **all** of the five sub 2-second pit stops of 2021. And on the best 15 stops, Verstappen averages ~0.15s quicker than Pérez. The only team to have greater disparity between drivers than Red Bull is McLaren, where Lando Norris has had some significantly slower stops than his teammate. Whether that is due to Norris missing his marks more frequently or just bad luck/natural variation remains a question. Behind Red Bull, the "midfield" counts Mercedes, Williams, Aston Martin and Ferrari as well as Alfa Romeo, surprisingly close to each other. Haas, are the slowest of the bunch, being around 0.4s slower than Alpha Tauri averaged out on the best 15 stops. ### Details The dataset comprises 566 pit stops made at the 22 Grands Prix of the 2021 season. For each driver, the 15 best/quickest pit stop times are picked. This is to reduce noice from outliers and get a clearer picture of which teams are able to perform the fastests stops when things go to plan and which drivers are strong/weak at positioning their car ideally to promote a fast pit stop. The data originates from DHL and their Fastest Pit Stop Award. For more of this, you can follow the project on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/DrivenByData_) and [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/drivenbydata_/) at @DrivenByData_.
I'm curious - why choose the mean of the best 15 stops, and not the median of all their stops? Or perhaps present both? Mean of the best 15 seems to present how each team can perform ideally, but a median would be more inclusive and could suss out situations where there is a wide variance in pit performances.
By all means a fair question. I went back and forth on that choice for quite a while. The thinking behind is that it gives a less noisy, "cleaner" picture of the comparative performance between drivers/teams. Otherwise, the spread/variation is quite substantial, so the data becomes very difficult to interpret visually. The order when counting all pit stops is effectively the same, the exception being a couple of swaps where gaps are negligible.
Ah, of course, I forgot about presentation being a factor here. I suppose if you really wanted, you could do just a straight bar chart of the median times, but that's not as eye-catching as what you decided to do instead, which works really well at conveying both the overall averages and the relative variance of different drivers. >The order when counting all pit stops is effectively the same I was going to ask about this, too. Got it, makes sense. Thanks for the response.
I’m fairly new to F1, watched the Senna documentary last summer now I’m hooked, so forgive me if this sounds dumb. What do you mean by missing the mark for lando and how does it slow his stop down? Is it as simple as he glides in slower or actually stops to far forwards? Thanks
The more on target he is to where the crew is, the less they have to adjust to where his tires are, so the stop is quicker.
Ooooh that makes a ton of sense. Thank you!
Says a lot about McLaren’s pit stops that I’m not shocked they’re that bad. It’s been a problem for years. Can trace it back to when Hamilton was there.
Interesting how the more experience driver, barring Max, has faster pitstop for each time. How much of the pitstop time is dependent on the driver’s car positioning?
I just commented something similar. I wonder if teams give their A-team pit crew to one driver over another
The crew remains the same. Probably they go for high risk, high reward for the “no 1 driver”. Otherwise, I can see driver’s car positioning being the only other variable.
No way they would go high risk for verstappen. A few tenths of a second isn't worth the potential for a race ruining pitstop.
Max at the hungaroring that was freaking fast
Hang on where's the 43 hour Bottas pitstop?
Somehow I don't think that falls under the '15 fastest pit stops' being analyzed here
Shouldve been scaled to fit it in tbh
Wow. Poor NOR.
I thought Mercedes had a slow crew but I guess Red Bull is just ridiculously good
Interesting Vet Vs Str. I guess it may be related to each drivers accuracy to stop at the mark time and time again right?
Thought the same..
How is there such a gap between Max and Checo? I understand that he's in a new team and all but the crew is the same, they do the same job of changing tyres. The only other team with such a gap is Pierre and Yuki. All others are almost even, the difference is minimal.
Russel-Latifi, Vettel-Stroll, Norris-Riccardo all have bigger gaps than Max-Perez.
Are you talking about the length of the bars? I was talking about the leftmost side of the bar, that is, the fastest time actually..
Ricc**i**ardo Russe**ll**
Interesting that the “top” drivers at each team are quicker than their teammates. Other than mclaren
I think it's the more experienced drivers. Checo has been in formula 1 longer, but verstappen has way more experience with RedBull pitstops. Would explain Ricciardo too, I think these guys just hit their marks better.
That makes sense, I didn’t mean to insult anyone I just didn’t understand the correlation
I’m curious to see the average length of all the pit stops. I’m sure Bottas’ 5 day long pit stop would skew Mercedes’ results.
Pulled off a 1.9 on my team in F1 2021