Fastest F1 Pit Stop Ever: McLaren's 1.80 Seconds

The fastest Formula 1 pit stop on record is 1.80 seconds, set by McLaren for Lando Norris at the 2023 Qatar Grand Prix and ratified by Guinness World Records. That figure counts only the stationary time — the car stops, four tyres change, and it is released — not the much longer trip down the pit lane. It edged out Red Bull’s 1.82 seconds from 2019 by two hundredths.

Two hundredths of a second. That is the margin at the very top of this discipline, and it tells you how close teams now are to the physical limit of changing four wheels.

The record and how it was beaten

The mark has been traded between a handful of teams over the last decade, each shaving fractions off the last.

Time	Team	Driver	Event
1.80s	McLaren	Lando Norris	2023 Qatar Grand Prix
1.82s	Red Bull	Max Verstappen	2019 Brazilian Grand Prix
1.88s	Williams	Felipe Massa	2016 Baku (European GP)
1.92s	Williams	Felipe Massa	2016, earlier in the season

Red Bull dominated the pit-stop era for years and set the 1.82-second benchmark at Interlagos in 2019. McLaren’s crew took it in Qatar in 2023 with a stop that was, by any human measure, indistinguishable from Red Bull’s — the difference was a rounding error made real. Williams, worth remembering, were the pace-setters before either of them.

How the time is actually measured

This is the part that trips people up. The record is stationary time only: it starts when the car comes to rest on its marks and stops when the car is released and moving again. It is captured electronically, and the season-long DHL Fastest Pit Stop Award is the body that tracks and ranks these figures race by race.

What it does not include is everything that makes a pit stop cost real time: braking into the pit entry, the pit-lane speed limit of around 80km/h, and accelerating back out. Add those and a “1.8-second” stop still costs the driver 20 to 30 seconds of race position. So when a broadcast flashes up a sub-two-second stop, that is the crew’s work in isolation, not the true cost of pitting.

Why the record has almost stopped falling

There is a floor here, and the sport is pressed right against it. Around two seconds is close to the fastest that roughly 20 humans can jack a car, break four wheel nuts, pull four tyres, fit four more, and get an all-clear signal from every corner. The single central wheel nut already removed the biggest chunk of time years ago.

What is left is rehearsal and equipment: faster guns, better-drilled hand-offs, an automated release light that fires the instant the last nut is confirmed. Each of those buys hundredths, not tenths. That is why the record moved by 0.02 seconds in four years rather than by half a second, and why the next improvement, if it comes, will be measured in the same tiny units.

Does the fastest stop actually win races?

Not reliably. A blistering stop is thrown away if the driver rejoins in traffic or if the strategy was wrong to begin with. Teams still chase the record because in a tightly matched field a tenth in the pit box can flip a position on track, and because a botched stop can lose a race outright. But the stop is one variable among many, and usually not the decisive one.

The bottom line on the fastest F1 pit stop

McLaren’s 1.80 seconds is the number to know, with Red Bull’s 1.82 and Williams’ earlier efforts marking the road that got there. Just remember what the figure measures: the crew’s stationary work, not the real time lost by pitting. The record is now bumping against human physics, which is why it moves in hundredths and may sit unbeaten for a while.

If you want the full choreography behind that 1.8 seconds, our explainer on how F1 pit stops work breaks down all 20 jobs and why the car only pauses for a heartbeat. For the strategy that decides when to spend those seconds, see our guide to F1 tyre compounds.