How long does it take to change a tyre?
It should take you around 30 minutes to change a tyre and get back on the road
How long does it take to change four tyres?
1.82 seconds: Red Bull Racing record the fastest tire change in Formula 1 history
It is odd that not only is it not just four times as long as the time to change one, it is far quicker, in fact.
Formula 1 motor racing is seen as the pinnacle of motor racing by most people and has seen huge advances over the decades in terms of technological breakthroughs. Initially, most of these improvements came from brute force - applying more power to the problem. Over time, however, the problem hasn't been about how to apply more power but about how to apply a restricted level of power - driving efficiency out of parts. This is quite a fundamental change in approach.
Not all changes, however, have been purely technological and over the decades, there has been a massive decrease in the amount of time to change tyres.
Currently, a good tyre change (all four tyres) takes about 3 seconds (the fastest are below 2) which is just astonishing when you see it. (video)
That is a difference of about 25 seconds since 1950 although those original pit stops involved far fewer people at 2 or 3 versus 20 (have a look here). Can you just chuck more resource at the problem?
So, is the current pit stop actually so much more efficient than an old one? That surely depends on the metrics being observed.
Maybe we should consider the number of man-hours involved rather than just time. That would give us (3 x 25) 75s vs (20 x 3) 60s so the second one is more efficient on that metric too.
In a race, the time taken is absolutely key but in other situations, cost will be. That means 20 salaries instead of 3. Can you imagine a local garage offering a 60 second tyre change being able to make money off it?
In the past, I used to be an English Language teacher and we would have a limit to the number of hours we could work each day. It was six hours. That seems a pretty low amount as a limit but this was only for our contact hours. School teachers in the UK teach for about 40 weeks out of the 52 in the year but you won't find many teachers that work for only 40 weeks. There is a lot of preparation (and marking, oh god the marking) for that contact time.
So, with that in mind, how long does it take to change a tyre?
In order to get that 3 seconds of contact time, you need
- about 20 people to know what they are doing
- Tyres placed correctly
- People positioned at the right place
- A driver that comes in correctly (timing, distance, angle)
- Equipment that works for that short period of time
- Somewhere to place the replaced tyres
- A driver that leaves the spot correctly (timing, distance, angle)
- The ability to go again when the other driver comes in
All of those things are done around the contact time and preparation and training also takes time. There is little point in having more people if you are not actually using them at the same time - parallel processing rather than serial. 20 people doing the old process would be quicker, but not to the same level at all.
The point is, being quick can be incredibly time consuming and take more time than being slow but sometimes you need to be quick at the right time. It isn't just about practice but you have to get your ducks in a row too. Planning the right order, getting things into a flow and invoking muscle memory - that is what will allow things to be done quickly, correctly and effectively.
And, for fun, here is a video of changing tyres in zero gravity!
