F1 Pit Crew: How Many People & What Does Each One Do?
"Box, box, box" is one of the most familiar calls on F1 team radio, but the two-second scramble that follows involves more people than most fans realize. A modern pit stop is a tightly choreographed job split across more than twenty specialists, each with one narrow task, drilled hundreds of times before a car ever pulls in for real. Here's who's actually out there, what each person does, and the numbers behind how it all comes together.
F1 Pit Crew by the Numbers
- 22 crew members: the total involved in a single pit stop, per Mercedes-AMG Petronas's own role-by-role breakdown; Formula1.com separately describes a team of around 23 on the wall including reserves.
- 12 crew members: dedicated purely to changing tyres — three per corner, one on the gun, one pulling the old tyre, one fitting the new one.
- 26 bar: the wheel gun's operating pressure, roughly a quarter of a typical power washer, per Formula1.com.
- Under 0.2 seconds: how long the wheel gun takes to remove a single wheel nut, per Formula1.com.
- £250,000: the cost of a single front jack — teams carry at least two, per Formula1.com.
- ~60 practice stops: how many a crew runs across one race weekend alone, per Mercedes-AMG Petronas.
Who's on an F1 Pit Crew?
Per Mercedes-AMG Petronas's own explainer of the job, a modern pit stop deploys up to 22 people around the car, each assigned one specific task:
| Role | Crew Members | Job |
|---|---|---|
| Tyre change | 12 (3 per corner) | One operates the wheel gun, one removes the old tyre, one fits the new one |
| Jacks | 2 | Operate the front and rear jacks that lift the car |
| Backup jacks | 2 | Stand by in case of a double stack or a jack issue |
| Stabilizers | 2 | Keep the car steady and clean the radiators, visors and mirrors |
| Front wing | 2 | Adjust the front wing at each corner if the team calls for it |
| Oversight | 2 | One controls the release/green light, one watches from the side as backup |
Formula1.com describes a slightly larger figure — "usually a team of around 23" — which likely reflects reserves kept on hand for a double stop, when both cars come in on the same lap and a second full crew has to be ready to go. Either way, the headline number is the same: an F1 pit stop is a job for more than twenty specialists, not the two or three people a road-car tyre change might suggest.
How the Wheel Gun Works
The single piece of equipment most associated with an F1 pit stop is the wheel gun — the pneumatic impact wrench that undoes and refits the one locking nut holding each wheel on. Per Formula1.com, the gun runs at roughly 26 bar of pressure, about a quarter of what a typical home power washer produces, and it removes a nut in well under two-tenths of a second.
Guns aren't cheap or disposable, either. An off-the-shelf unit costs around £5,000, and teams then modify their own — a process that roughly doubles the price. Because a gun failure mid-stop can cost a race, teams carry about 24 of them in total between the units in use and the spares on hand, per Formula1.com's reporting.
The car doesn't drop until every corner confirms the job is done. The crew member controlling the release button only sends the car when they can see all four wheels are properly fitted — which is also why a stop that looks fast can still turn into a costly one if a single corner isn't ready and the driver has to be held an extra beat.
How a Pit Stop Comes Together, Second by Second
Mercedes-AMG Petronas breaks its own stops down into five phases, and the arithmetic explains why the best stops land in the sub-2.5-second range while still leaving margin for error:
| Phase | Approx. Time | What Happens |
|---|---|---|
| Jack up + nut removal | ~0.4s | Front and rear jacks lift the car; wheel guns remove the old nuts |
| Wheel changeover | ~1.0s | Old wheel comes off, new wheel goes on |
| Nut installation | ~0.3s | Guns re-tighten the new wheel nuts |
| Car lowered | <0.1s | Jacks drop, car returns to the ground |
| Driver reaction + launch | ~0.3s | Release signal given, driver releases the clutch and pulls away |
Add it up and the phases alone account for roughly two seconds — which is exactly why a truly exceptional stop, the kind our fastest F1 pit stops guide covers, needs every single one of those twelve tyre-change specialists to execute their half-second task without the slightest hesitation. It's also why teams treat the pit stop as its own strategic weapon: shaving even a few tenths off a stop can be worth more than a lap of on-track pace, which is a big part of why calls like the undercut and overcut exist in the first place.
How Much Do Pit Crews Practice?
None of this is improvised on race day. Per Mercedes-AMG Petronas, a crew runs roughly 60 practice stops across a single Grand Prix weekend — around 20 on Thursday, 15 on Friday morning, and the rest spread across Saturday and Sunday mornings before the race itself. Formula1.com's reporting puts the scale in even starker terms: by the start of the 2019 season, the ten teams on the grid had completed a combined total of around 100,000 practice stops, and Williams alone had logged more than 1,200 on its dedicated pit stop rig.
That volume of repetition is also why crews aren't just mechanics pulled off the garage floor — many pit crew members have other primary jobs within the team (engineers, mechanics, even physios) and train specifically for their corner role on top of that, the same way a driver trains separately for race fitness. The goal is to make a half-second task so automatic that it holds up under the pressure of a live pit lane, in the rain, or in the chaos of a safety car period when several cars pit within seconds of each other.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many people are on an F1 pit crew?
Mercedes-AMG Petronas's own breakdown puts the number at up to 22 people involved in a single pit stop: 12 on the tyres (three per corner), two on the jacks, two backup jack operators, two stabilizing the car, two adjusting the front wing, and two overseeing the stop and the release signal. Formula1.com separately describes a team of around 23 on the wall, including reserves for double stops.
What does each pit crew member do?
Three people work each corner: one operates the wheel gun, one pulls the old tyre off, and one fits the new one on. Two more crew members raise the car on the front and rear jacks, two hold backup jacks in reserve for double stacks or problems, two stabilize the car and clean the radiators, visors and mirrors, two adjust the front wing if needed, and two oversee the stop itself, including controlling the release signal.
How does the F1 wheel gun work?
The wheel gun is a pneumatic impact wrench that undoes and refits the single locking nut on each wheel. Per Formula1.com, it runs at around 26 bar of pressure — about a quarter of a typical power washer — and removes a nut in well under two-tenths of a second. Teams carry roughly 24 guns in total between the spares and the ones in use, and an off-the-shelf gun costs around £5,000 before a team's own modifications roughly double that.
How much do F1 pit crews practice?
A lot. Per Mercedes-AMG Petronas, a crew runs roughly 60 practice stops across a single race weekend alone, spread across Thursday and Friday and Saturday morning sessions. Formula1.com reported that by the start of the 2019 season the ten teams had completed a combined total of around 100,000 practice stops, with Williams alone logging more than 1,200 on its pit stop rig.
The Bottom Line
An F1 pit stop looks like a blur of wheels and hydraulics on TV, but it's really a job split across more than twenty specialists, each drilled on one half-second task until it's automatic. That's the machinery behind every undercut and overcut call a strategist makes, and it's why the record-chasing stops in our fastest F1 pit stops guide are treated as team achievements, not just a driver's. That whole operation only ever starts with two words from the pit wall -- see our "box, box" explainer for why that specific call is always doubled. For more on what the crew is actually bolting onto the car every time, see our Pirelli F1 tyre compound guide. The two crew members adjusting the front wing angle mid-stop are working on the part our F1 front wing explainer breaks down in full.