Diego Ioverno, Sports Director of Scuderia Ferrari, has explained how the team responsible for Ferrari’s pit stops during Grands Prix is structured and how the rotation of personnel works throughout the Formula 1 season.
Year after year, and across different technical eras, pit stops in Formula 1 have become increasingly important in determining race outcomes and overall results. With refuelling now long gone from the sport, changing tyre sets has become a true art of speed, almost like a “Bolt of tyre changes”, where training, precision, preparation, physical fitness and attention to detail have become more and more decisive.
During the month of April, when Formula 1 did not race on track, all teams worked to keep their pit stop mechanics fully trained and race-ready. Among them, of course, was Ferrari.
We have already reported on the work carried out during this unexpected break in a previous article: Motorsport.com spent a day in Maranello, inside the Racing Division, speaking with Matteo Togninalli, Loic Serra and Diego Ioverno.
It was precisely Ioverno, Ferrari’s Sports Director responsible for managing sporting relations with the FIA, who provided an interesting insight into how the Ferrari pit stop mechanic group is managed and structured. Typically, attention tends to focus on wings, aerodynamic profiles and technical innovations, while the human aspect is often overlooked, even though, as we have seen, it makes a decisive difference.
“In the first three races there was not a single race in which the 27 people performing pit stops were the same, in any position,” Diego Ioverno said exclusively to Motorsport.com. “So this month was useful because we were able to recover all the sessions, or almost all the sessions, that we had not been able to do in January and February. Since we returned, every day the guys have been doing a session divided into three blocks with three different rotating teams that represent what will happen in Miami, Canada, Monaco and Barcelona. Then in reality we have finished, it is really just training because it is true that we change every race, we change the team, but it is also true that at this moment we have decided to have ten gunmen. We have trained all ten.”
Regarding the so-called “gunmen”, Diego Ioverno explained how Ferrari manages the ten people responsible for operating the wheel gun, the tool used to loosen and tighten the wheel nut on the hub.
“We have ten people who can use the gun, of which eight are based at headquarters and the other two are backups of the backups. We always travel with four gunmen plus one of the other four, and then there are the remaining two. One handles the rear trolley and also acts as backup of the backup for the gun. Another acts as tyre fitter. Then all the gunmen, except two, also perform another role in other races. So when we bring someone as a fitter and a gunman gets injured, he switches to becoming a gunman. We have a programme for the entire year and, based on that programme, we train them all in the positions they will take. We were still missing about half of the team to fully train.”
The current management system, rotation of personnel and training structure of the pit stop team originates from 2020, when COVID forced Ferrari to prepare a contingency plan in case any team members were unable to attend races due to illness.
It is clear that, in order to make this organisation work, several people perform dual roles within the pit stop working group. Diego Ioverno further explained:
“As far as we are concerned, we have been structured this way since the COVID period. We also have a group that we do not really call the ‘first team’, but rather positions that we tend to confirm more often. For example, for the front trolley we have three people who perform that role. The best one is the one we try to use for 16–17 races. In the eight races he is not available, we try to ensure the second one takes over. The best front trolley operator is also Lewis’s lead tyre fitter. The second front trolley operator is Lewis’s lead car chief. However, we also rotate car chiefs and tyre fitters. So this year there are four races in which neither the lead tyre fitter nor the lead car chief is present. Therefore, the third trolley operator is needed. We had not trained him at all. Now we cannot afford to train him just one week before. So for pit stops it has been a useful month on several levels, both to continue training everyone and to recover what we had not managed to do.”
In order to arrive prepared for the correct positions, aligned with the dimensions of current Formula 1 cars, Ferrari has developed a dedicated car that replicates the technical specifications — in terms of size and space constraints — of this season. In the second part of 2025, a car was built using a 2022 chassis (the F1-75 ground-effect platform, to be precise) to begin training personnel.
“Around September last year we launched the 2026 pit stop car, which is a 2022 chassis with 2026 components. So it already had the front end, the corners, and so on. From there we started identifying a series of critical issues and worked on them. We only just managed to be ready for the first races, which is why we were not able to train everyone. That one-third of pit stop work that we were able to do was focused on development, and that is what you were asking me about. The tyres are smaller and not much has changed in that respect. But the rims are different, the wheel covers are different, and the way the tyre is handled has changed a lot both during insertion and removal, because during removal there is no longer the possibility to grip the outer wheel cover or the rim lip.”
Compared to last year, there are important changes due to tyre dimensions, as well as wheel covers, which have increased the complexity. Ferrari therefore introduced new solutions for mechanic training, aiming to reduce difficulties and be ready for the start of the 2026 season.
“When inserting the gun, since the donut has a prescribed shape and a looser fit compared to last year’s rim, it has also become more difficult to mount the tyre,” Diego Ioverno continued. “For this reason, a large part of the early year was spent training the guys with slightly different techniques, both in grip and in shoulder and leg positioning when removing and fitting tyres. The same type of work was necessary for the gunmen, especially at the rear, while at the front there was little change as the nut was still exposed.”
“However, last year’s rear wheel covers were funnel-shaped, so the gunman simply had to insert the gun and it would reach the nut. This year it is different. Another change concerns the wing mirrors, which are in a different position and have a different, no longer prescribed shape. So we had to develop the front trolley because what we liked did not fit underneath, and what fit underneath we did not like. We carried out a major debugging phase because it had to be completed before Australia, and now we are in the refinement phase.”
Some pit stop adjustments are driven by regulations and the new technical rules introduced this season. Others are design choices, such as the positioning of the front wing flap adjustment device, which plays a strategic role both aerodynamically and operationally for mechanics during race weekends.
“Keeping the front wing incidence adjuster on the outer side is something we agreed and decided much earlier for aerodynamic reasons. If the aerodynamic engineers had wanted to design a wing with performance advantages where the front flap adjuster was inside rather than outside, we would have had to revise the procedures. But it is not certain that it will remain like this.”
“For example, we are now working on how to manage pit stops from Barcelona onwards, where there will be the possibility, or rather the regulation will allow it, to change the straight mode during the pit stop. At the moment straight mode cannot be changed, but from race 9, which has now become race 7, it can be changed. So first of all you need a system that is changeable. Then you need to decide whether you also want it for the pit stop, and if so, how, and without losing time. It is something we are working on.”
Another challenge introduced by the new regulations was expected to be nose cone replacement. However, for Ferrari, there do not appear to be any significant differences compared to previous seasons.
“In terms of nose cone replacement there are not many differences, because access to the mounting area is slightly more complex due to the shape of the nose cone shroud, but it is simplified by the size of the wing. In fact, we are achieving more or less the same times,” the Ferrari Sports Director concluded.
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