equation. This orthodoxy was challenged
in 1982 when an analytically minded race
team from the United Kingdom focused in
on two important facts. First, softer tires
stuck to the track better during turns than
their harder cousins, though they wore
out more quickly. Second, less gas in the
tank translated into a lighter, and therefore faster, car. Calculations showed
that time spent changing tires and refilling the tank was more than offset by
the improved performance of the car on
the track. It’s a calculation any analytics
practitioner would be proud of.
The idea quickly caught on, making
pit stops – and their efficient execution –
an integral part of racing. Refueling was
banned in 1984 out of safety concerns,
but reinstated in 1994. During that 10-year
period pit crews refined their tire changing skills to the point where the fastest pit
stops took a little over four seconds. When
refueling was again instituted, the impetus
for faster tire changes disappeared since
refueling was the bottleneck. That changed
in 2010 when F1 racing again reverted to
a no refueling policy, setting the stage for
lightening fast tire changes.
Achieving a two-second tire change
required optimizing the entire process.
Engineers took a look at everything from
the design of the wheel nuts (one per
wheel on F1 cars) to the special, selfpositioning pneumatic guns that remove
A NA L Y T I C S
and tighten each nut. They then turned
their attention to the pit crews.
Teams of three work on each wheel:
one to remove the old tire, one to position
the new tire and one to operate the gun.
Their moves aren’t left to chance, but are
choreographed down to the position of
their hands and feet from start to finish.
It’s not hard to imagine John and Lillian
Gilbreth – progenitors of industrial engineering and pioneers of time and motion
studies – standing nearby, stopwatches
in hand. They’d certainly be smiling in approval. With two jack operators and scattered observers, as many as 20 people
crowd around a car during a pit stop – for
two seconds of work.
Optimization brings to mind models
and mathematical programs. But sometimes optimization is smart without being
sophisticated. And in the F1 pit, it works
like magic.
Andrew Boyd, INFORMS Fellow and INFORMS
VP of Marketing, Communications and Outreach,
served as executive and chief scientist at an
analytics firm for many years. He can be reached
at [email protected].
NOTES & REFERENCES
1. Gray, W., “Tech Talk: Can F1 Pit Stops Get Even
Quicker?” Eurosport, April 9, 2013. See also: https://
uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/blogs/will-gray/gray-matterf1-stops-even-quicker-101951154.html. Accessed
May 24, 2014.
2. Examples of fast pit stops can be found at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHSUp7msCIE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xvu0GlMa3xQ
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