Toto Wolff has acknowledged that Mercedes paid insufficient attention to pit stops during its dominant Formula 1 years, a period when the team’s overall performance often compensated for any strategic errors or slow pit stops. With the playing field leveling out in the ground effects era, efficient pit stops have become crucial, but Mercedes is currently trailing behind its competitors.
Teams like Red Bull and McLaren have emerged as leaders in this aspect, with McLaren setting a world record with a 1.80s pit stop for Lando Norris at the Qatar Grand Prix. Wolff has admitted that Mercedes needs to catch up, recognizing that their mindset over the past 12 years prioritized avoiding slow pit stops rather than aiming to be the best in the world at it.
Wolff stated to the media, including RacingNews365, “Our mindset for the last 12 years was that we don’t need to be World Champions in pit-stops, we just need to avoid slow pit-stops. It is coming to a situation now where we realize because it has become so competitive, we just need to ramp our game out there. In terms of equipment and science around it, we will be making a step up to [be better] than three-and-a-half seconds.”
