Talk:Pit stop

Image please
If anyone has an image of a pit stop please add it to this page because I think it would really help illustrate what it is. An F1 pit stop where there are loads of mechanics would be best but anything will do. SamH 22:05, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * I emailed the PR lady at http://www.barf1.com (the BAR-Honda F1 team website) and she said she'd be glad to let Wikipedia use any number of the images on their site. I borrowed a nice pitstop picture and scaled it down: see Image:BAR pitstop.jpg. &ETH;&aring;&ntilde;&eta;&yuml;&szlig;&ocirc;&yacute; | Talk 15:49, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I think we have enough images of NASCAR and F1 pit stops, but I would like to see some pictures for IndyCar and endurance racing pit stops.Mustang6172 (talk) 00:13, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I'll talk to a friend I know who used to cover races at Laguna Seca for the local paper; he might have some photos of slightly older pit stops (circa 10-20 years ago) that we could use. I think he tries to get to the track on a regular basis still; if so, maybe he'll be able to give us some free pictures of IRL and ALMS stops at some point this year.  rdfox 76 (talk) 13:22, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Finally got in touch with him, and he suggested we look at and  as potential choices.  They're not perfect (both date to 1991, and the first one's from the old IMSA GTP series that's the distant ancestor of today's Grand Am DP cars), and I don't have an email or formal permission to use them yet, but if you guys think they'd be reasonable, I'll see about getting something that would satisfy the NFCC wonks...  rdfox 76 (talk) 13:05, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Number of mechanics
I have reverted the edit by User:Ropers because I don't think that the original version was contradictory. The first paragraph is talking about pit stops in general (i.e. not any particular race series). It is true to say that in general any number of mechanics can be involved. However, where we are talking about F1 pit stops in particular, it is true to say that the number is "about twenty". Furthermore, I believe it is misleading to say that it is "typically about twenty" because that suggests that the number varies from time to time which it does not. SamH 20:10, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

One word or two?
Should this article be titled pit stop or pitstop? The Times style guide says pitstop, the official website uses pit stop and the BBC mainly uses pit stop but occasionally uses pitstop and pit-stop. I get the feeling that this might simply be down to personal preference, but I thought I'd check if anyone else cares. SamH 22:43, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Also could someone comment why it's named pitstop? Where this came from? 200.158.202.122 00:59, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * I think it comes from a time before vehicles were raised on hydraulic lifts for maintenance access. At one time it was common to build a narrow masonry or concrete-lined elongated pit with steps leading down at either end.  The car would be positioned over the pit and one could climb down into it to work on the underside of the vehicle.  It's a device still used by some backyard mechanics, but rarely found in repair shops today.  The question is whether such pits were ever used at racetracks, such as Indianapolis.  &mdash;QuicksilverT @ 15:36, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm not 100% certain about this, but I *think* I read at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway museum that the track originally did have actual work pits on pit lane. However, it's been four or five years since I was there--could anyone who's been there more recently confirm or deny this? Rdfox 76 16:28, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Drive through penalty
My memory is failing me and I can't find it on the web: is it true that it happened once that a race was won in a pit stop? Or was it that the race leader got a penalty drive-through and that this penalty was taken in the last lap, hereby effectively both finishing the race and fullfill the penalty at the same time without real time loss? Maybe this is an interesting piece of trivia, that the pit lane counts as part of the track and races can be finished in a pit stop. Technically this hasn't anything to do with pit stops but there isn't an entry for pit lane. Felsir 11:25, July 24, 2005 (UTC)


 * I bet you're thinking of Jeff Burton's win several years ago at the NASCAR All-Star race. The race has different rules than a normal event, including a required pit stop under green flag conditions. The rules didn't say WHEN the driver had to pit, so he did his pit stop on the last lap. He crossed the finish line in the pits ahead of everyone else. He gained time on because they had to complete the entire slow drive down pit lane, but he didn't. Royalbroil 16:54, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Accidents in pit stops
Is there a page on Wikipedia that lists Formula One accidents in the pit? Or more generally a list of Formula One accidents? I can find a list of race drivers that were killed while racing but no mention of spectators, pit crew, or other people. --Steerpike 11:54, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

More info about pit rules please
Those of us not familiar with motor sports could use a basic explanation of how the pit stop effects position, especially during a yellow flag. --Doctorfoxxe 13:21, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Just made a major set of additions to the article, including one that hopefully addressed your question. Is the information you wanted in there?  Rdfox 76 18:08, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

NASCAR Section
Reguarding the comment about one stop strategies at Bristol and Martinsville. What awful math is that based on? By my calculations, that would only be possible if 375 of 500 laps were run under caution. Since the tracks are so slow and the gearing is low (rhyme not intended), they can only go about 70 miles on a tank of fuel. Anyone who watched the Bristol race this month can vouch for that.Mustang6172 05:43, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I based it on the "average" fuel mileage figure given by NASCAR (4.5 mpg) and the old 22-gallon fuel cells, which works out to 99 miles under green, i.e., about 180-200 laps at Bristol and Martinsville. Add in the typical number of cautions, you could theoretically make it on one stop, but it'd be very very risky.  I forgot that they cut the fuel cell size to 19 gallons with the CoT; will change it to reflect current reality.  Rdfox 76 15:47, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Terminology section?
I was wondering whether there ought to be some mention of differing terminology between american and european series. For instance, American series talk about "Pit Road" or "in Pit Lane", while europeans tend to call it "the pitlane" or more generally "the pits", using the definite article and concatenating it into a single word.

Oh, and I removed a section about a 2003 Ferrari fire at a pitstop, since small fires aren't especially unusual, but they're put out quickly. The 2008 Brazilian GP would be more worthy of mention than that one, as it had about 4 fires. -mattbuck (Talk) 02:24, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Crew chief
The Crew chief is a very important job in NASCAR but it's poorly represented in WP. To improve this I added "Crew chief" under "roles" so the redirect from Crew chief leads to the proper section of the Pit Stop article instead of to the top of the article. Now people can actually read about what a Crew chief is --Hutcher (talk) 19:09, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Pit Garages
How are they allocated to the teams at each race track? Who is responsible for them? In major races/tracks do the big teams customise their own garage or pay for their upkeep? Are these garages actually all the same (like the cars)? Are some pit garages more preferable than others (race tactics - back/centre/end of the pit row)? Do the teams use the same pit year after year?

Rather than just narrative, and the story of the pits, these are the sort questions that should be addressed in an encyclopedic article! Otherwise any reader who is not an expert on the subject learns nothing except, who did, they did etc

File:Junior at Darlington edit.jpg to appear as POTD soon
Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:Junior at Darlington edit.jpg will be appearing as picture of the day on February 20, 2011. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2011-02-20. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page so Wikipedia doesn't look bad. :) Thanks!  howcheng  {chat} 01:06, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

F1 pit crew roles
I think there is a mistake in here - it says that the two front new tyre carriers have the responsibility to adjust the front wing. I am almost certain that they don't and that there are two dedicated persons for that. Look at the picture of the William pit stop in the article. You can clearly see 3 people taking care of the front right tyre, and then another person in front of them (to the left of the front jack man) making a wing change. The same on the front left, but it is a bit less visible there as there is also the lollipop man. Could someone more knowledgable than me correct this and also use the proper name for the role? --SmilingBoy (talk) 23:14, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Tyres or tires
What are we doing re. spelling of 'tyre' in this article? The original had 'tyre' and that would seem to be the most appropriate for F1 sections, however, Nascar would clearly prefer 'tire'. According to WP:ARTCON the whole article should use a consistent form of English (which would mean using 'tyre' throughout as this was what was originally used in the article as per MOS:RETAIN) but I can see an argument for keeping 'tire' in the US based sport sections. We need a decision and to comment it effectively to avoid endless reversions. Btljs (talk) 05:10, 7 September 2015 (UTC)


 * Since we probably should be consistent, I would settle on British English and "tyre" per MOS:RETAIN. There's no strong tie to either spelling, though as international motorsport does tend to use the British spelling, you could make an argument for "tyre" on the basis of wider usage. QueenCake (talk) 16:21, 7 September 2015 (UTC)
 * What we've been using thus far is using the British spelling in the F1 section, since FIA officially uses the British spelling, and the American spelling in the US-based sections (NASCAR, IndyCar, and, at the time I added it, endurance racing, since I was building off of the ALMS and Grand-Am rules; at the time, FIA didn't have an endurance championship, and all of ACO's official references were in French, natch). Personally, I wouldn't object to the endurance racing section switching to the British version, given that it's more international, but I would still recommend that the NASCAR and IndyCar sections retain the US spelling, since both of them use "tire" as the official spelling in the rulebooks and all official publications.  While WP:ARTCON says it should use a single consistent form of English, I'd argue that this is a place where we can suitably apply WP:IAR and WP:ENGVAR to be consistent with actual usage in the different branches of the sport.  rdfox 76 (talk) 04:12, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I would tend to agree with this. What I want to avoid is wading in and bullishly changing 80-odd 'tires' to 'tyres' quoting MOS:RETAIN when the different sections are quite distinct. I'm going to put a comment at the top of each section to state whether it's: 1. Non-specific->'tyre'; 2. F1->'tyre'; 3.NASCAR or IndyCar->'tire'. What do you think about endurance racing? Btljs (talk) 11:07, 8 September 2015 (UTC)


 * I've done that. I've left endurance racing for now (using 'tire') but all the other sections are explicit. Btljs (talk) 12:43, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

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Time Cost of a "green flag" pit stop
A "green flag" pit stop occurs when the race is ongoing. A "yellow flag" pit stop means that the vehicles are going slower and are prohibited from passing. The following only applies to the dynamics of a "green flag" pit stop; the issues are very different under a yellow flag pit stop.

Race announcers report how many seconds each pit stop takes. They start the clock when the car stops and stop the clock when the car starts to roll. "only 3.9 seconds." That's interesting information, but it's almost a small part of how much time is lost during a pit stop. The driver needs to slow down before pit lane entry, his speed is always (?) limited while in the pit lane (e.g., NASCAR limit ranges from ), the driver needs to slow from that speed to a stop, and after the crew has finished their "only 3.9 seconds" the driver needs to accelerate to the pit lane speed limit, maintain that speed to the end of the lane, and then accelerate to racing speed and merge into traffic.

How much time does all this take? It varies according to the type of racing and the individual tracks, and other issues can have a large effect: traffic within pit lane, engine/gear/clutch problems, and traffic problems when merging back onto the course. * Indy cars = 42 seconds
 * * At the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, an IndyCar Series car is on pit road for about 38 seconds, including the time the car is stopped and being serviced. However, the driver begins slowing the car on the exit of Turn 3 on the "in lap."  After the pit stop, it takes up to the of Turn 4 for the car to return to full racing speed on the "out lap."  At the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, a green flag pit stop cost the pitting car about 42 seconds, or roughly one lap, relative to the leader of the race. According to IndyCar.com
 * NASCAR = ???
 * F1 = "30 or so seconds"
 * Other racing leagues = ???

Pit Lane Speed Limits

 * NASCAR varies with the track: 30 at small tracks to 55 mph at big tracks
 * Indy: "usually 60 mph"
 * F1: 60 KPH during practice, 80 KPH during the race - the driver has a button that activates the limit

Hobkirk (talk) 23:57, 29 May 2016 (UTC) I'm a Wikipedia novice, so I encourage feedback. I was surprised to see how good the "Pit Stop" article was, and then disappointed to see it didn't discuss what I regard ad the bigger issue of total time.

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Style guide: "Pit row" or "Pit road"
Currently NASCAR television announcers use "pit road" to describe the area. Did it evolve from "pit row" over time? For example, this NY Times article does not seem to agree with itself on the style (headline pit row, but pit road used in the text. https://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/15/sports/othersports/on-pit-row-its-first-and-tire-change.html Group29 (talk) 18:08, 24 August 2022 (UTC)