SPIELBERG, Austria - Red Bull team principal Christian Horner believes the FIA's plan to slow down the pit stops from the Hungarian Grand Prix could result in making them more dangerous.
On safety grounds, the sport's governing body circulated a technical directive – essentially an explanation of the rules – intended to prevent teams from using an automated system to make a pit stop.
F1's rule book forbids the use of sensors to estimate each step before a pit stop, saying such devices can only be used "passively" during tire changes.
The technical directive, which will be implemented in Hungary to give teams time to adapt, is designed to ensure that each step is divided by human reaction time, rather than what is possible with automated systems.
For example, 0.15s should separate the moment the wheel nuts are tightened and the moment the car is lowered from its jack. Another 0.2 seconds must elapse before the driver receives a signal to leave the pit, usually via a traffic light unit suspended above the car.
Red Bull currently holds the record for replacing all four tires in race conditions - in 1.82 seconds - and regularly makes pit stops faster than its main title rival Mercedes.
Asked whether his team was specifically targeted by the technical directive, Horner said: "I think you can see there is a lot of activity in our direction at the moment, but it's in the areas of being competitive." comes with.
"A lot of energy is going to get the car up and down, which is clearly what happens in a competitive business.
"It's something we get used to but don't lose too much sleep about."
Part of the reason for the technical instruction is to ensure that the automatic system does not take over and consequently checks are removed by pit crew members to release the car in a safe position.
But Horner is concerned that the details of the technical instruction could have the opposite effect.
"I think holding the car for 0.2, you could almost argue that it's dangerous because you're judging the gap and the person leaving the car has to make that decision," he said. "I think it hasn't been well thought through.
"F1 is about innovation and stopping the pit in less than two seconds is a remarkable achievement and we should encourage it while not trying to control it.
"Otherwise, where does it stop? We're being told which way to walk into the garage, we should sit on the pit wall and I guess which buttons we should press."
Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff said his pit crew had already performed additional safety checks during its pit stop because the potential cost of leaving the car without wheels far outweighed any benefit from a slightly faster stop
"You'll always put everything in your pit so you can't take the wheel apart or stop because the penalty is huge," Wolff said.
"In the past we had a policy of making sure that wouldn't happen and that also meant having some circuit breakers in the system in a way that could never happen. And it would slow you down in case of a pit stop. is.
"But it was our own decision, it had nothing to do with anyone else. It's nice to have a fast pit stop and they look cool but I'm not 100% sure there's such a big performance difference because we're about tenth Talking about an average or two, we're not talking about the slowest or fastest pit stop.
"It will be interesting to see where it comes from and what was its basis."
Asked whether Mercedes triggered the clarification of the rules by talking to the FIA, Wolff said: "We inquired with the FIA on a safety net, which relates to the system we were using and whether it has been adapted. can be done.
"It happened, I would say, three or four weeks ago and it was a technical question. Did it trigger something else? Maybe, I don't know, but that's the question we asked."