Revealed: Ferrari’s relentless quest to improve F1 pit stops

Ferrari made a promising start to the 2022 campaign as Charles Leclerc won two of the first three races, but the team’s bid to win their first F1 world title in 14 years collapsed due to a combination of strategic blunders, poor reliability and driver errors. 

Following Mattia Binotto’s resignation, Frederic Vasseur has been appointed as Ferrari’s new team principal and has been tasked with delivering the Scuderia their first championship since 2008.

Preparations for the new season have been intense at Maranello as Ferrari looks to mount a sustained title challenge to Red Bull, after Leclerc had to settle with runner-up spot behind runaway champion Max Verstappen last year. 

One area of focus has been on improving pit stops, an area chief engineer of vehicle operations Diego loverno is tasked with. 

"From my experience, you may not win a Grand Prix because of a pit stop, but because of a bad tyre change, a victory is over,” loverno told Gazzetta dello Sport. 

An intense programme has been set up for Ferrari’s mechanics, who practice 20 pit stops twice on a daily basis.

According to loverno’s estimations, each mechanic will complete in the region of 1000 practice pit stops ahead of the season. 

Ferrari finished fourth in the ‘DHL Fastest Pit Stop Award 2022’ - behind Red Bull, McLaren and AlphaTauri. 

Red Bull have won the award for the last five seasons. 

Ferrari will be hoping the practice pays off in 2023 and helps them finally end their long wait for F1 silverware.