Reading: Race is on to change F1 tyres in under 3 seconds

By Alex Kapadia

William’s technical director Sam Michael has predicted that pit stop battles between teams are about to become fiercely competitive.

The refueling ban for the 2010 season means drivers will only enter the pits to change their four tyres.

And with stops likely to take between just three and four seconds to complete, Michael believes today’s crews are set to create an exciting pit-stop spectacle.

He said: “How fast these guys are changing the tyres is bloody impressive and it’s going to be a really good show I think in Formula 1.

“Formula 1 is unique in terms of pit-stop times because a lot of other categories either don’t have pit stops or they have a limited number of people in pit stops, so they are generally slow.

“But the pit-stop times in Formula 1…it is going to be an impressive race.

“So I think they will easily smash the previous records.”

Asked if the thought more mistakes would be made with tyres changes this year, he said: “Absolutely.

“To be honest they’ve been on a cruise for 15 years because they are fuel limited.

“So they could have a spare four seconds up their sleeve in previous times.

“So there was no desire to push them for those last two or three tenths because as you push for those two or three tenths you make mistakes, so you’d rather say slow down by half a second to make sure you get it right.”

This entry was posted on Monday, February 8th, 2010 at 4:16 pm and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.