How do you overtake a car… by pitting?
The undercut: pitting before your rival so you come out ahead when they stop. How it works, when it fails and how it looks in a real race.
Summary
- A pit stop costs about twenty seconds, but fresh tyres lap faster than worn ones.
- If you stop first and gain more time on fresh tyres than the distance between you, when your rival stops they will rejoin behind you.
- It fails with traffic on the way out, a slow stop or a safety car.
- 1
You are behind
You are about 2 seconds behind another car and there is no way past on track: narrow circuit, dirty air, same pace.
- 2
You pit first
You come in and fit new tyres. A stop costs around 20 seconds (21 in the figure), so you rejoin far behind.
- 3
New tyres = faster laps
While you lap on fresh rubber, your rival is still on old tyres and each lap gets slower. In the figure you take 1.5 seconds per lap off the gap.
- 4
They stop… and come out behind
When they finally pit, they lose the same 20 seconds. If the time you took off them is more than the 2 seconds you started with, they rejoin behind you.
Try it with the latest race
Pick a chaser, a leader and a lap from the latest race with data. The simulator uses the pace, tyre wear and pit-stop cost measured in that race and tells you in what percentage of simulations the chaser comes out ahead.
Did you get it?
Glossary
- Undercut
- Pitting before the car ahead so that, on fresh tyres, you lap faster and come out ahead when they stop.
- Overcut
- The opposite of the undercut: staying out longer than your rival, in clean air, and coming out ahead when they pit.
- Pit-stop cost
- The time lost by entering the pits, stopping and rejoining compared with staying out. It changes from one circuit to another; on the site it is measured with each race's data.
- Stint
- The part of a race a driver runs on the same set of tyres, between two pit stops.
- Safety car
- A car that comes out on track after an incident so the cars lap slowly and bunched while the track is cleared.
- Compound
- The type of tyre (soft, medium, hard…): softs grip more but wear out sooner.
Sources
- The undercut means pitting before the car ahead: the stop costs time, but new tyres allow faster laps and you can get past when they stop. GPFans · Pit stop strategy explained: how the undercut and overcut work in F1
- It works best at circuits with high tyre degradation or where overtaking is hard. GPFans · Pit stop strategy explained: how the undercut and overcut work in F1
- Safety cars and yellow flags can ruin an undercut: it is most effective when there are no interruptions. Catapult · The power of the undercut and overcut
- The overcut is the opposite: staying out longer than your rival, using clean air, and coming out ahead when they pit. Catapult · The power of the undercut and overcut
Sources checked on 18 October 2026. The explanations are popular-level: for the exact rules, check the FIA sporting regulations.
Keep learning
The six flags that rule an F1 race (green, yellow, blue, red, black and chequered) and what each one demands, with the flags from the latest race.
The record is 1.80 seconds, but stopping costs far more: entering and leaving the pit lane takes around 20 seconds. See how it is done and what it cost in the latest race.