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Vettel called his pit stops in one of the last seasons and Schumacher was said to pull all the strings and that this was the reason for his success.


His racing antics and desire to win at any cost aside, Schumi was brilliant. There were way less real time metrics of pit stop strategies, more variables like refueling and less sensors in the car. He was a master strategist and now with each team having dedicated teams around data and strategy, I doubt we will see a complete driver like him.


Calling your pit stops makes sense, sort of, for drivers. Top drivers like Vettel (well pre-Sbinalla Vettel) have a better "feel" for the tires and can gauge how they are doing. But this often times is risky and breaks down in races because the human brain, especially under the pressure of F1 racing, is not going to be tracking thousandths, hundredths, or even tenths of seconds off lap times over 4-5KM of traveled distance. You can hear frustration in engineers voices when trying to convince a top driver they need to get new tires after ignoring previous calls to "box" (come in for a pitstop).




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