Mercedes says some of its pit crew at the Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix hadn’t done a live race pit stop “for 15 years”.
The Silver Arrows had a mixed Singapore weekend, with George Russell crashing out of the lead of the sprint race as Andrea Kimi Antonelli finished third in the grand prix.
The Singapore Grand Prix was the last stop of a triple-header that began in Azerbaijan before moving to Malaysia for the rescheduled Bahrain Grand Prix.
With the race calendar standing at 24 rounds and three triple-headers concluding the 2026 campaign, staff management is an integral part of race weekends for F1 teams now.
Antonelli was third in Singapore
Mercedes’ impressive Singapore pit stops
At Singapore, Mercedes had changed up its pit crew, with deputy team boss Bradley Lord revealing that some hadn’t done an in-race pit stop since the current team’s early F1 days.
“There's a healthy advantage, but absolutely nothing is done and dusted, and we just need to focus on getting both cars to the finish as high up as possible,” Lord said of the constructors’ championship in the Silver Arrows Radio Show.
“I mean, that sounds so banal, but it's our job each race weekend.
“I would also say maintaining the sort of operational effectiveness and slickness that we've seen over the last triple-header, probably the most demanding three races in terms of conditions in the garage, temperature, humidity and everything else.
Mercedes regularly has the fastest pit stops in 2026
“In Singapore, even with changes in the pit crew - we had people in the pit crew who hadn't done a live pit stop for 15 years, who were subbed in because of injuries and things like that – we were the quickest team through the pitlane, delivering the fastest stop for the second weekend in a row.
“That just shows the level that the team is operationally working at, and that's really encouraging to see as you come into the really tough bit, the real grind at the end of the season, long trips away from home, away from family.
“Just really operating at an incredibly high level.
“That was quite a feather in the cap of the team in the garage and the pit stop crew to be really nailing those stops at every single race we can.”
Lewis joined the Crash.net team in August of 2024 having been a journalist for five years covering MotoGP for the Motorsport Network. In February of 2026, he became Head of Editorial.