Toyota discloses unprecedented details of F1 development

TPS expert Toshihiko Akioka was then sent from Toyota Motor Corporation to Toyota Motorsport in Cologne. He worked with Richard Cregan to explore ways of refining pit stop procedures.

Cregan takes up the story: “He helped us to understand TPS, and recognise which parts of it we could use, and how we could improve the efficiency of a pit stop. One of the main things he did was really help us to be able to look at ourselves in a critical manner, and a constructive manner. That’s something we’re not very good at in general, the human race, looking at ourselves and saying we can do this better. He helped us recognise that, and to apply that process in pit stops.”

Akioka set about the task by studying pit stops by reviewing videos with the men involved. There were two key elements, firstly the individuals and how they fitted their roles, and secondly how those specific jobs could be done better. “I understood immediately that everyone wants to do their best and wants to improve their job,” Akioka explains. “Knowing this, all I had to do was to create an atmosphere where everyone could perform to the best of their ability and improve themselves. So I set up a stage where they could see by themselves what they were doing. This is why I used video recordings in many cases. At first there were some resistance in some members, but soon many members came to me and asked me to record their job and they took the video back home to watch it. They then came back to me the next day and gave me many ideas which was worth trying. We tried all ideas from many members during pit stop training and timed it. Then we used all ideas which shortened pit stop time.”

“Together with Tosh (Akioka), one of the first things we did was to look at all the people we were using on the pit stops,” says Cregan. “We rotated everybody to see what job they did best. Maybe the guy on the wheel gun preferred to do that job, but following on from the tests we did, we found that while he may like to do that job, he’d be far better doing the rear jack. For example, he might be left-handed or right-handed, he may have upper body strength that could be required elsewhere. All those things were recognised, so we swapped everybody around to their most efficient position, and improved pit stop times by 15-20% just by that alone.”

Every crew member was able to make a significant contribution to the processes involved in a stop, and how they could be improved.

“It was a question of recognising the techniques of changing a wheel, what’s the best way of doing every individual job. So that meant taking one particular task like changing a wheel and breaking it down into all the components of the process, such as putting the gun in, taking the wheel nut off, taking the wheel off, putting the wheel back on.

We broke down every single action, and looked at the action and examined it for potential improvement, then putting those improvements in place. It’s very much an example of kaizen; you bite away at each little aspect of the whole process, and then at the end of that process you’ve suddenly saved 1.5-2s on a pit stop. If you try and do that without looking into the detail of the actual job, you wouldn’t be able to do it.”

While practising stops is all about making the routine feel as natural as possible, it’s also important to be ready for the unexpected. That’s when preparation can really pay off.

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