Richmond was an extremely busy night for pit crews with some doing as many as ten pit stops during the race. The extra tire set provided crew chiefs with some strategy options but also resulted in pit crew seeing as much as pit lane action as those competing in endurance races like the 12 Hours of Sebring.
Just about every crew stepped up and the competition was so close that the top-10 pit crews were all within a half a second of each other. It’s notable just how consistent the competition has become that they’re able to stay that close with every crew completing eight to ten pit stops during the race.
The No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing pit crew of Chase Briscoe kept him in contention all night and walked away with the best average four-tire change time of the race. The No. 24 pit crew of William Byron continues their hot streak and comes in just half a tenth behind them on average time as they continue to be the consistency leader out of the Hendrick Motorsports camp over the last few weeks.
That No. 24 pit crew came within a hundredth of a second of setting the fastest pit stop at Richmond but were beaten by their teammates on the No. 5 pit crew of Kyle Larson as they were able to complete a four tire change in just 8.18 seconds.
B/R Racing@br_racing
Hendrick Motorsports pit crews have started moving up the charts in the second part of the season and the No. 5 pit crew of Kyle Larson showed why as they set the fastest stop of the race in Richmond on Saturday night
8:59 PM · Aug 17, 2026 · 452 Views
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Race winner Joey Logano was able to stay out front and collect the win with the contribution of fast pit stops from his No. 22 pit crew which has been the best ranked pit crew out of the Team Penske facility this season. The recent hot streak from their driver has surely encouraged to step up their game as well.
Everyone started the first half of the race on a similar strategy and pitted for four tires whenever a yellow came out but as green-flag pit stops became a necessity we saw six different strategies emerge among the front of the field with the race-winning car of Logano leading the primary strategy, which had a roughly 40-50 lap cadence for tire changes.
Drivers like Denny Hamlin and Kyle Larson pitted in shorter windows with hopes to take advantage of the fresher tires later in the run while Bell and Reddick tried to stretch their tires out to the end unsuccessfully. The only front-running car to attempt a two-tire stop was the No. 12 of Ryan Blaney on the penultimate stop and that ultimately did not end up working out for them as they ended up outside of the top 10 to finish the race.
Looking forward to New Hampshire, we see once again that pit-stall openings make a significant difference in performance but just as we noted for Richmond, the first pit stall isn’t the one with the best record even though it has all the best attributes. Once again, the pit stall with the opening out towards the middle of pit lane has the best average finish and in this case, it is pit stall 19 with an average finish of 5.75. There are quite a few good performers and New Hampshire with multiple stalls have a single-digit average finish.
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