Williams drivers caught out by team's quick pitstops
Williams drivers Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa both say that the team's pit stops have improved so much that they were caught out at the first race of the year in Australia.
Photo by: XPB Images
After facing criticism for regular problems in the pit box in the past, the Grove team has consistently had the fastest stops in 2016.
“The first time I got that quick a pitstop it surprised me,” said Bottas.
“The green light came on and I thought it was a mistake or something! But then you get used to it, you get prepared quicker for the green light, and it's fine.”
Massa said: “I was surprised in the first race that we had such a quick pitstop.
“We even lost time because it was quicker than you expected, but then in Bahrain and in China I was ready to have a good one, because the team is doing a good job.”
New pitstop tech
The drivers agree that changes to the technology used by the team are the key to the quicker stops.
“It's mainly the wheel nuts and the guns,” said Bottas. “We've focussed on pitstops so much in the last two years and trying to make them better so the guys have practised massively.
"So finally when everything else is sorted, they are very quick, so that is good. As it is very close now in the midfield where we also stand, it can help us a lot.”
“I think the biggest change was related to the wheel nuts and the gun,” said Massa. “And some things that we changed that we knew [about] already but we didn't have the opportunity to change straight away. We changed from last year to this year, and the situation is completely different.
"I was hearing many times in the last two years that we have no idea how to do the pitstops, which was not true. The guys are still the same, they're still doing their job, and now they are the quickest. And we are quite consistent.
“I had a slow pit stop [in China], we had a mistake in my second pit stop, but [even] with a mistake it was three-point-something.
"Last year to have a pit stop with 3.2s or 3.3s was a normal pit stop. So this shows we improved.
"The people are maybe a bit more organised, more confident, because things work in the proper way. But for sure we changed something, that's the main issue.”
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