Evolution of Pit Stops in F1 Racing Games (1996 - 2024)

F1 24 is being released this week and it is the latest official Formula 1 game. More than 40 such games have been released over the past 30 years and pit stops have been a feature in most of them. Here you can see a Ferrari doing a pit stop at Monza in 40 different F1 games, from Sony's 1996 PS1 game all the way to the brand new F1 24 by Codemasters, showing off the variety of animations and game mechanics that were used for pit stops over the years. Enjoy the show!

Timeline:
0:00 Formula 1 (PS1, 1996)
0:50 Formula 1 97 (PS1)
1:19 Formula 1 98 (PS1)
1:56 Formula One 99 (PS1)
2:25 F1 World Grand Prix (PS1, 1999)
2:55 F1 2000 (PS1)
3:24 F1 Racing Championship (PS1, 2000)
3:56 Formula One 2000 (PS1)
4:30 F1 Championship Season 2000 (PS1)
5:04 F1 Championship Season 2000 (PS2)
5:42 F1 Racing Championship (PS2, 2001)
6:28 Formula One 2001 (PS1)
7:02 Formula One 2001 (PS2)
7:44 F1 2001 (PS2)
8:27 F1 2002 (PS2)
9:09 Formula One 2002 (PS2)
9:51 Grand Prix Challenge (PS2, 2002)
10:25 F1 Career Challenge (PS2, 2003)
11:07 Formula One 2003 (PS2)
11:44 Formula One 04 (PS2)
12:18 Formula One 05 (PS2)
12:57 F1 Grand Prix (PSP, 2005)
13:30 Formula One 06 (PS2)
14:13 Formula One Championship Edition (PS3, 2007)
15:00 F1 2009 (PSP)
15:41 F1 2010 (PC)
16:18 F1 2011 (PC)
16:49 F1 2012 (PC)
17:25 F1 2013 (PC)
17:56 F1 2014 (PC)
18:32 F1 2015 (PC)
19:08 F1 2016 (PC)
19:46 F1 2017 (PC)
20:24 F1 2018 (PC)
21:01 F1 2019 (PC)
21:39 F1 2020 (PC)
22:15 F1 2021 (PC)
22:59 F1 22 (PC)
23:36 F1 23 (PC)
24:13 F1 24 (PC)

By far my most viewed video over the past 2 years or so has been my video showing the Evolution of Pit Stops in Gran Turismo, so it looks like a lot of people find this topic quite interesting. Another racing game franchise that regularly features pit stops is of course F1, so for the release of the new game I decided to create a pit stop compilation for this series as well.

Several other videos like this already exist. However, my version goes back all the way to 1996 and features a total of 40 different officially licensed Formula 1 games, which should make this the biggest F1 game pit stop compilation on YouTube. It took me multiple weeks of full time work to create this video together with a few other ones, so I hope you will enjoy it. :)

Many of you will know the annual F1 games by Codemasters that have been released on PC, PlayStation and Xbox since 2010 but there were also many official F1 games before that.

The first F1 game by Codemasters actually came out in 2009 already but it was exclusive to Wii and PSP. And in 2000-2003 there were multiple official games per year, with EA's F1 series and Sony's Formula One series competing against each other.

As usual I put in additional effort to make the video as good as possible. Rather than doing my stops in lap 1 I did most of them later in the race, so that we can also see some of the interactions that happen when other cars are doing their stop at the same time. And I also managed to capture a couple of funny moments again, some of which were not even planned. You'll have to watch the full video to find them. :P (or wait until people point them out in the comments)

Note that the PS1, PS2 and PSP games are played via emulator, which improves their resolution but can lead to some texture bugs that wouldn't happen on actual hardware, especially with the PS2 games, so keep that in mind when judging the look of the games in the video.

It's interesting to see the variety of mechanics that were used for the F1 pit stops over the years. Sometimes everything happened automatically. Sometimes you could choose the amount of fuel or the tire type during the stop. And during the quick time era of gaming we also had a few games with quick time events, making you press the correct buttons at the right moments in order to complete your stop as quickly as possible.

Which Formula 1 games have you played yourself and which ones were your favorites? Share your personal thoughts and stories about F1 games in the comments. And what do you think about the different pit stop animations and mechanics that were used over the years?

_____

Disclaimer: As part of the EA Creator Network I was given free access to the games from 2020 to 2024. #EAPartner

[Paragleiber]

Check out my other F1 evolution videos as well:

[ProjectDriver]

It's crazy to realise that originally the road wasn't visible 50ft ahead, and now the intricate details of the diffuser are visible

[Aries]

6:32 Michael Schumacher kills Mika Hakkinen (2001, colorized)

[DarcyCardinal]

6:32 "Better luck next lap buddy" 😂

[NinjaPups]

5:09 those brakes are just built different 😂

[SIDYfer]

21:02
Leclerc: "Entering the pits"
Vettel: *YOINK*

[F-BLightningII]

6:32

Bro got sent to god same day shipping.

[sumith_dsouza]

16:55 F1 2012 animation of pit stop is so cool and realistic 🔥

[rynogt]

11:00 McNish adding a bonus challenge to the interactive pit stop

[SandroMac]

27 years old and they still haven't realized that an F1 car doesn't make that sudden movement when leaving the pitstop position.

[hola]

How many damn F1 games did they make for the Playststion in 2000/01. My Lord.

[mr.tobacco]

6:32 Michael Schumacher sends Hakkinen to Heaven Lane than the Pit Lane.

[bayuganss]

11:00 The racer was actually drifting😂😂

[pablofernandez]

09:51, the HUD reminded me a lot of Burnout

[AliS-is]

"oh dear, oh dear" matey just drove 70mph into the back of another F1 car lmao

[jedrzejfr]

All these years, and cars still turn sharply in pit like toys held in greasy hand of a 5 year old, they stop from 300 km/h to 80 instantly, and wheels doesn't move an inch because of track curvature, surface imperfections, or any other forces.

I don't know, but hasn't the development of computer games came almost to a standstill like 10 years ago? At least.

[kojiyaw]

I'm convinced that F1 2000 for the PS2 just used the Tom and Jerry scream on loop for the car sounds

[Mr.Goldbar]

F1 2012-2014 and 22-24 had the best pitstops by far!

[Air_Cardinal]

I've played Formula One 97, 2010 and now 2022. At the respective times of playing, they never felt old.

[Freaky_Zmos]

F1 Championship is still one if not the best F1 Game ever to this day. Grahphics, Sounds, everything was a 10/10 only problem was PS3 Exclusive. Would love to play it on my PC with my RacinG Chair etc.