Fastest F1 Pit Stop Ever: The Full Leaderboard (1.80s Record)

The fastest Formula 1 pit stop on record is 1.80 seconds, set by McLaren for Lando Norris at the 2023 Qatar Grand Prix and ratified by Guinness World Records. As of the 2026 season, no team has beaten it — the closest anyone has come since is 1.90 seconds. Behind that number sits a genuine leaderboard: nine verified stops, all from three teams, all packed inside a 0.12-second window.

The full leaderboard: fastest F1 pit stops ever

Ties are given equal rank. Sources: Guinness World Records, Formula1.com 2025 award results.

1. McLaren, 1.80s — Lando Norris, 2023 Qatar GP

Still the only sub-1.85-second stop in the sport’s history. McLaren’s crew changed all four tyres and released Norris in a time so close to Red Bull’s old mark that Guinness had to confirm it electronically before ratifying it as the new world record — beating the previous benchmark by two-hundredths of a second.

2-3. Red Bull, 1.82s and 1.88s — Max Verstappen, 2019

Red Bull owned this record for four years. Verstappen’s 1.82-second stop at Interlagos in 2019 stood as the mark McLaren eventually chased down in Qatar, and it came weeks after the same crew ran a 1.88-second stop at the German Grand Prix — part of a run of Red Bull dominance that also produced a 1.91-second stop for Pierre Gasly at Silverstone that same season.

4. Red Bull and McLaren, 1.90s — 2024 season

The two teams that have owned the record since 2019 tied at 1.90 seconds in 2024: Verstappen’s Red Bull crew in China, and Oscar Piastri’s McLaren crew in Mexico City. It was the closest anyone came to 1.80s in either the 2024 or 2025 seasons.

What the record actually measures

This is the part that trips people up. The record is stationary time only: it starts when the car comes to rest on its marks and stops the instant it is released and moving again. It is captured electronically, and the season-long DHL Fastest Pit Stop Award is the body that tracks and ranks these figures race by race — it runs on a 25-to-1 points scale, just like the drivers’ championship, and Ferrari won the 2025 title with nine race victories despite never owning the single fastest time.

What it does not include is everything that makes a pit stop cost real time: braking into pit entry, the pit-lane speed limit of around 80km/h, and accelerating back out. Add those and a “1.8-second” stop still costs a driver 20 to 30 seconds of race position. So when a broadcast flashes up a sub-two-second stop, that is the crew’s isolated work, not the true cost of pitting.

Why the record is so hard to break

There is a floor here, and the sport is pressed right against it. About 1.8 to 2 seconds is close to the fastest that roughly 20 humans can jack a car, break four wheel nuts, pull four tyres, fit four more, and get an all-clear signal from every corner. The single central wheel nut already removed the biggest chunk of time years ago; what is left now is rehearsal and equipment — faster guns, better-drilled hand-offs, an automated release light that fires the instant the last nut is confirmed. Each of those buys hundredths, not tenths, which is why the outright record moved by just 0.02 seconds between 2019 and 2023.

Could 1.80 seconds fall in 2026?

It is genuinely possible. Every top crew — McLaren, Red Bull, and Ferrari — now runs sub-2-second stops as routine, and the gap between the record and the season’s best has shrunk to well under 0.15 seconds most years. The 2026 season brings a full technical reset with new chassis and power-unit regulations, which typically scrambles competitive order in the garage as much as on track; teams rebuilding their cars from scratch also tend to rebuild pit-stop choreography, and that has produced record-breaking runs before. Still, McLaren’s mark survived two full seasons (2024 and 2025) untouched, so betting on exactly when it falls is harder than betting that it eventually will.

The bottom line

McLaren’s 1.80 seconds for Lando Norris in Qatar is still the number to beat, with Verstappen’s Red Bull runs and the 2024-25 McLaren stops forming the chasing pack just behind it. Remember what the figure measures — the crew’s stationary work, not the real time lost by pitting — and you will read every “world record pit stop” headline correctly from here on.

For the full choreography behind that 1.8 seconds, see our explainer on how F1 pit stops work. For the strategy that decides when teams spend those seconds, read our guide to F1 tyre compounds, and for how points translate into championships, see our F1 points system explained.