F1MATHS: McLaren fractionally beat Red Bull to set pit stop record in 2025

McLaren clinched their fourth consecutive double victory at last Sunday's Hungarian Grand Prix, while they also set a new pit stop record in 2025. F1Technical's senior writer Balazs Szabo reveals how teams performed in terms of tyre change at the Mogyoród race.

For the last round ahead of the summer break, Formula One's sole tyre manufacturer Pirelli supplied teams with compounds from the softer end of its six-compound range: C3 as Hard, C4 as Medium and C5 as Soft. Up until last year, these would have been the softest tyres of all, but this year, the C6 was introduced.

The experience and data from the previous season had indicated that the two-stop strategy would emerge as the fastest approach to last Sunday's Hungarian Grand Prix, but the drop in ambient and track temperatures influenced teams' preferences.

However, with clouds having gathered above the Hungaroring, ambient and track temperatures dropped. It enabled ten drivers to pit just once despite the pre-race simulations.

For Lando Norris, the start of the race could not have gone worse. Having qualified in P3, the McLaren pilot fell behind George Russell’s Mercedes and Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin.

Out of necessity, the second-placed contestant in the world championship opted for a risky one-stop strategy to get past his teammate Oscar Piastri who was set to stop twice.

Norris’s fortunes were dependent on a perfect pit stop. On lap 31, the McLaren crew changed his worn mediums to new hard tires in 1.94 seconds, a super-fast time that easily secured the DHL Fastest Pit Stop. No pit crew has been speedier than McLaren this year. Norris returned to the track in fourth place and was able to wrap up the victory with a clear run.

The McLaren crew also did a perfect job for Oscar Piastri, completing yet another stop in 1.94 seconds. Thanks to the superbly executed one-stop strategy, Norris was able to prevail in the final battle against his teammate.

“It’s the first race where doing a completely alternate strategy to most of the others and giving myself that opportunity actually worked out,” said a delighted Norris afterwards. “I didn’t have a lot of hope that I’d still be in a fight with Oscar till the very end, but that’s the way it turned out. So that was even better.”

Red Bull struggled for pace all through the weekend, but the Milton Keynes-based outfit delivered a perfect pit stop, only fractionally having been slower than McLaren. The British squad changed tyres on Yuki Tsunoda's car in just 1.97 seconds which is the only sub-2-second tyre change alongside McLaren's pit stops.

Ferrari have led the way in terms of pit stop since the start of the season, and the Scuderia was quick again, having serviced Charles Leclerc's car in just 2.04 seconds.