Motor racing: Red Bull set record for fastest F1 pitstop

LONDON (Reuters) - Red Bull set a Formula One record in Sunday’s German Grand Prix by changing all four tyres on race winner Max Verstappen’s car in 1.88 seconds, according to official timings. Formula One’s logistics partner DHL holds an annual fastest pitstop award with points accrued over the season. Red Bull are leading Williams in the standings after 11 of 21 races, with Ferrari third. It was the second race in a row that the expertly-choreographed Red Bull mechanics had broken the record, with a 1.91-second pitstop for French driver Pierre Gasly at the British Grand Prix two weeks earlier. Verstappen made five pitstops in a chaotic race at Hockenheim, and Gasly four, with the fastest coming on the 46th of the 64 laps. Red Bull team boss Christian Horner sent chief mechanic Phil Turner up to the podium to collect the winning constructor’s trophy. “The pit stop crew were unbelievable today,” said Horner. Mercedes, who were caught off guard by one of five-times world champion Lewis Hamilton’s pitstops during the race, could not manage a pitstop faster than 2.50 seconds on a dismal Sunday for them. Hamilton’s slowest lasted some 50 seconds and came just after he had hit the barriers, with some of his mechanics changing the front wing while others swarmed around uncertain which tyres to fit. Earlier, five times world champion Lewis Hamilton took a lucky Bahrain Grand Prix win for Mercedes on Sunday after engine trouble in the dying stages denied Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc a first Formula One victory. The luckless Leclerc had looked like becoming Ferrari’s youngest ever race winner, at 21, after starting on pole position and leading comfortably. Instead, the Monegasque ended up third. Hamilton and team mate Valtteri Bottas, lapping far faster than the stricken Ferrari, reeled him in and breezed past to secure the team’s second one-two finish in as many races and against the odds.