Published 15:18 IST, November 22nd 2019
Red Bull zero gravity pit stop: F1 team's mind-boggling performance creates history
Red Bull's zero-gravity team perform fastest ever tyre-change; break the world record of fastest pit stop during the 2019 Brazilain Grand Prix last weekend
Advertisement
Red Bull recently registered victory at the Brazilian Grand Prix with Max Verstappen taking the chequered the flag in the incident-packed race last weekend. The team’s mechanics also made the headlines for officially completing Formula 1’s fastest ever pit stop, changing Max Verstappen’s tyres in a 1.82s.
Following their record-breaking performance, the team have released a video where they have taken their pit stop skills to new heights.
Advertisement
Red Bull zero gravity pit stop
A part of the team’s mechanics completed the world’s first zero-gravity pit stop using the team's first-ever F1 car, the RB1 from 2005. The crew performed the task with the help of the Russian space agency Roscomos, and aboard an Ilyushin Il-76 MDK cosmonaut training plane.
Advertisement
According to a release from Red Bull Over the course of a week, pit crew members took a crash course in cosmonaut training in preparation for multiple Zero-G flights in the plane's fuselage along with the F1 car and a 10-strong film crew. Each flight consisted of a series of parabolas, with the aircraft climbing at a 45-degree angle, then falling in a ballistic arc, to produce a period of weightlessness of around 22 seconds before the next climb.
Advertisement
Speaking about the experience Red Bull mechanic Paul Knight said, "The first parabola the team did was really quite strange. There was no sensation while going up or down. Climbing at 2G, with twice your normal body weight, feels like being planted into the ground and you struggle to move. Then that sensation reverses when you go over the top and into freefall." He also said that the experience was amazing.
Advertisement
11:59 IST, November 22nd 2019