F1 Pit Stop Times 2026: Mercedes Half a Second Faster

F1 pit stop times 2026 have a clear leader: Mercedes. Across the first 17 rounds of the season, GridRaces data shows their typical stop ran 0.51 seconds quicker than the median stop at the same race, the best of the 11 teams. Red Bull were next at 0.27 seconds. At the other end, Cadillac were 1.06 seconds slower than the median. Half a second sounds like nothing until you remember how many strategies hinge on an undercut that lands by a few tenths.

How we measured F1 pit stop times in 2026

Raw pit stop times are a trap. In the GridRaces data the median logged stop at the Dutch Grand Prix (Round 12) was 18.06 seconds. At the Spanish Grand Prix (Round 14) it was 31.44. A team that happened to pit more often in Spain would look slow for reasons that have nothing to do with the crew.

So we did this. For every logged stop in rounds 1 to 17 of the 2026 season, we took its duration and subtracted the median duration of all stops at that same race. A negative number means faster than a typical stop that day. Then we took each team's median across the season.

We kept stops under 40 seconds: 603 of the 689 logged. The 86 longer entries are almost certainly something else (repairs, penalties, a red flag) and would make everyone look worse in a way that says nothing about practice and choreography. We have not classified them one by one, so treat that cut as a judgement call, not a law of physics.

Which team is fastest in the pit lane?

Mercedes, by a distance that is small in absolute terms and large by pit-lane standards. Their median stop was 0.51 seconds under the race median across 55 stops. Red Bull sit second at 0.27 under across 52. Ferrari are third at 0.16 under (59 stops) and McLaren fourth at 0.12 under (54).

Then comes a cluster that is basically the field. RB F1 Team, Aston Martin, Alpine, Audi and Williams all sit within 0.04 seconds of the median. If you are wondering whether one of them is secretly quick, the data says: no, and also not slow.

At the bottom, Haas are 0.49 seconds slower than the median and Cadillac are 1.06 slower, across 59 stops. A first-season crew is learning in public, and one second a stop is roughly what that tuition looks like. The joke, if you want one, is that a team new to the grid has found the one place where a stopwatch cannot be talked into believing in them.

Where the median lies to you

The median is the crew you meet on a good day. The mean is the crew you meet on Sunday. The gap between the two is where the story is.

Mercedes' mean is 0.31 seconds under the race median, so their slow stops are not dragging the average. Only one other team, RB F1 Team at 0.06 under, has a negative mean. Everyone else is above zero.

Ferrari are the interesting case. Their median is 0.16 under, one of the best in the field, but their mean is 0.54 over. That is a 0.70-second gap between a typical stop and the average one, which means a handful of slow stops are doing real damage. Aston Martin show the same pattern more extremely: a median basically on the line (0.02 under) and a mean of 1.19 over. Williams, with 64 stops, the most of any team, have a mean of 1.05 over against a median of 0.01 under.

Read that as an execution problem, not a speed problem. These crews can do a normal stop in a normal time. The trouble is the occasional one that goes wrong, and an occasional slow stop is the kind of thing that turns a good strategy call into a bad afternoon. It also lines up with how few safety car periods we have had in 2026, where a slow stop in green-flag running costs you more because nothing neutralises it.

What is the case against reading too much into this?

Three caveats, in descending order of importance.

First, sample size. Fifty-odd stops per team is enough to spot a half-second gap, not enough to rank teams separated by a few hundredths. Do not take the order of RB F1 Team, Alpine, Audi and Williams seriously.

Second, we are using the logged duration, which depends on how the timing source defines a stop. At the same circuit it is a fair comparison. Across circuits it is not, which is exactly why we normalised by race.

Third, a fast pit stop is one input into a result, not the result. Mercedes have still lost races this season, for reasons we looked at in our breakdown of their six defeats. Nobody has ever won a title on stopwatch alone.

Verdict: what half a second is worth

Our view: Mercedes' pit-lane advantage is real, modest, and underrated. Half a second will not win a race on its own, but it is the margin that makes an undercut stick when two cars are separated by tenths, and Mercedes can lean on it when the track gives them nothing else. The bigger story may be Ferrari, who have the speed to match Mercedes and lose it to a few bad stops. Fix the tail and that gap closes.

Interlagos is next, in Round 20. We will check whether the pattern survives a new pit lane in São Paulo. Meanwhile, you can explore the underlying numbers in the telemetry hub, check where each team stands in the championship standings, and browse more data stories in our analysis archive. For how long a tyre actually lasts before a stop is needed, see our hard tyre stint length analysis.