In recent days, doubts have emerged from the FIA regarding the pit stops: they are too fast and the Federation intends to slow them down starting from the Hungarian GP.

There was a careful monitoring of the data by the Formula 1 pillars and the thoughts that emerged are that, during pit stops there are reaction times that confirm how the level of automation is sometimes greater than that allowed by the rules in force.

One of the first to comment on the issue was Christian Horner, Team Principal of the Austrian team, record-breaker in terms of fast pit stops:

"We have [Red Bull] been very competitive. We've got the world record on pit stops," - Horner said - "We've had the majority of fastest stops during the year and it's not by accident. I find it a little disappointing, and it's the duty as a competitor to ensure that the car is safe."

"The penalty for a wheel not being fixed is you have to stop the car immediately so it's a brutal punishment if you haven't got all four wheels securely and safely fastened. So what the technical directive is trying to achieve, I'm not quite sure because I think that there's an awful lot of complexity to it," he added.

"When you're in a competitive situation, if you can't be beaten, then obviously the most logical thing is for your competitors to try and slow you down. And that's obviously what's happening here," explained Horner, subtly referring to Toto Wolff and Mercedes.

The measure is not aimed specifically against anyone, but in a note sent to all the teams before the Styrian GP, the FIA specifies that from the weekend in Budapest, in August, the pit stop procedures must garantee human reaction times.

However, the Red Bull boss analyzed the decision from a different perspective:

"I think you can see there's an awful lot of pointed activity in our direction at the moment that comes with being in the territory of being competitive, and an awful lot of energy is going into trying to slow the car down, which is what obviously happens in a competitive business. So it's something that we're used to, but not losing too much sleep about."

Toto Wolff responded to this matter by saying that:

"It's interesting to see, because there must be a reason why that Technical Directive has come up, and I'm not 100 percent sure." 

Then he continued: "The operation of the wheel gun, and the release of the car, are a highly complex matter. And I'm certainly, all of us in the team, up for competition, because it's a competitive field. But there is also the safety argument, that Christian mentioned it before, you will have always put everything into your pit stop. So you avoid the wheel just detatching or coming off, because the penalties are enormous." 

"Fast pit stops are nice to have and they look cool, but I'm not 100% sure that there's such a huge performance differentiator because we are talking about a tenth or two on average, not talking about the slowest to the fastest pitstops. So it's interesting to see where that came from and what the basis was," he concluded.