How fast is the fastest Formula 1 pit stop, in seconds?

How to get close to this number

Time it against something physical. Count how long it takes you to stand up from a chair, or to say a short sentence out loud. A pit stop removes and replaces four wheels in less than that. Framing it against an action you can actually perform is far more accurate than trying to picture the stop itself, which television makes look longer than it is.

People overestimate because they time the wrong thing. The broadcast clock often runs from pit entry to pit exit, which includes the speed-limited lane and is many times longer. The record measures only the stationary period — the car halted, jacked, changed, dropped and released. Those two definitions differ by an order of magnitude, and picking the wrong one is the single biggest source of error here.

It is a record rather than a norm, and the conditions behind it matter. A clean stop with no wheel-gun misfire, a car that stops perfectly on its marks, and a team optimising for the award all contribute. As the explanation notes, roughly twenty people each perform one narrow task, so the figure is really a measure of choreography, and it has crept downward year on year as that choreography has been refined.