Pit Stops & Strategy

Pit Stops & Strategy

Scheduled Pit Stops

Each car has a pit strategy configured on the Race Setup page. Stops occur when the current lap matches a scheduled pit lap.

Pit-Skip Decision

When a scheduled pit lap arrives, the driver and crew chief check whether they really need to pit. If the tyres are still in good shape, they may choose to skip the stop and extend the stint. This saves the pit time penalty but keeps the worn tyres on.

The decision works like this: the game calculates a threshold number. If current tyre health is above this threshold, the stop is skipped. The threshold depends on the combined skill of the driver's Racecraft and the crew chief's Strategy:

threshold = max(20, 65 - combinedSkill x 2)

A low-skill pair (combined skill around 0) gets a threshold of 65, meaning tyres need to be above 65% health to skip. This is very conservative and they will almost always pit as scheduled. A high-skill pair (combined skill around 22 or more) gets a threshold of 20, meaning they will keep running until tyres are quite worn. This is aggressive and allows extending stints significantly.

When a stop is skipped, the pit window is consumed (it does not happen later) and both tyre health and pit time are saved. This can effectively turn a planned 2-stop race into a 1-stop if the tyres are healthy enough at the second window.

Safety Car Opportunistic Pit

If a car's next scheduled stop is within 2 laps during a Safety Car period, they pit early (counts as scheduled stop).

Repair Pits

Cars with damage > 0 pit immediately for repairs, even if not scheduled.

Pit Time Calculation

A standard pit stop takes 25 seconds, but a good crew chief can speed this up significantly:

• <strong>Base pit time</strong>: 25.0 seconds for a full stop with tyre change
• <strong>Crew Chief Mechanics</strong> reduces this: the effective mechanics skill determines a factor between 0.5 (fastest, half the time) and 1.0 (slowest, full time). The formula is: factor = max(0.5, 1 - min(effectiveMech/20, 0.5)).
• Final pit time = 25.0 seconds x factor, plus or minus up to 1.5 seconds random variation. The minimum is 18 seconds.

For example, a crew chief with effective Mechanics of 10 gives a factor of 0.5, meaning a 12.5 second pit stop (before randomness).

Repair Time (if damaged)

When a car pits with damage, repairs happen during the stop. The repair speed depends on the crew chief's Mechanics skill:

• repairEfficiency = max(0.3, 1 - effectiveMech x 0.015)
• Repair time = damage percentage x 0.6 x repairEfficiency, plus or minus 2 seconds random

After the repair, damage is reset to zero. A car with 50% damage and an average crew chief would spend roughly 15 extra seconds in the pits getting fixed.

Double-Stacking Penalty

If two cars from the same team pit on the same lap:

• The second car receives an additional 3.5-8.0s delay
• This simulates waiting for the first car to be serviced

Strategy Considerations

• <strong>More stops</strong> = fresher tyres but more time in pits
• <strong>Fewer stops</strong> = more track time on worn tyres
• <strong>Crew Chief Mechanics</strong> skill directly improves pit times
• <strong>Driver Racecraft</strong> + <strong>Crew Chief Strategy</strong> enable pit-skipping
• Consider weather forecasts when planning stops