Aston Martin team wins Pit Stop Challenge: What role did a curious plastic figurine play?

Comtoyou has clinched the title for the best pit crew in the DTM: What role a 3D-printed figurine played and just how strong the Aston Martin team was

Nicki Thiim’s Aston Martin team, Comtoyou, won the DTM Pit Stop Challenge for the first time this year, edging out the Emil Frey team by three points to take second place at the season finale in Hockenheim. An unusual lucky charm played a key role in the Belgians’ unprecedented comeback in the battle for the title of the DTM’s best pit crew of the year.

After experiencing difficulties during the first two race weekends of the season, a black plastic figurine has been perched on the pillar of the Belgians’ pit stop since the Lausitzring – and the crew have been unstoppable ever since: across twelve races, the crew clocked the fastest pit stop in the field on seven occasions – and, in 5.510 seconds, even set the fastest GT3 pit stop of all time. But what’s the story behind the figurine?

“That’s our lucky charm: François, our team boss,” revealed mechanic Pierre Planat – and thus the head of the Comtoyou pit crew – as he proudly accepted the trophy at the DTM awards ceremony in Hockenheim. “We 3D-printed him. He’s always watching over us.”

“Big Boss is watching you”: Team boss from the 3D printer

Ahead of the Lausitzring weekend, the Comtoyou crew used AI to design a sort of cartoon character of team boss Francois Verbist and produced it themselves using a 3D printer. Since then, it has been a fixture at every race, looking down on the crew from the pillar where the impact wrenches are hung.

True to the motto: “Big Boss is watching you”. The pressure doesn’t seem to be affecting the team: after four Comtoyou pit stops lasted over nine seconds during the first two weekends of the season, all 28 stops from then until the season finale were between 5.5 and 7.7 seconds.

On eight occasions, they even broke the six-second barrier – something the outstanding crew of the Porsche championship-winning Manthey team, for example, never managed. Only at Hockenheim did a pit stop go wrong for Thiim, taking 10.5 seconds. Nevertheless, on Sunday, Nicolas Baert once again clocked the fastest tyre change of the weekend at 5.722 seconds. And that was crucial, as after Saturday, Comtoyou and the Emil Frey team were level on points.

Turning point ahead of the Lausitzring: it wasn’t just the plastic figure

But what is the team’s secret? “We’re good friends,” replied Planat when asked by presenter Matthias Killing at the awards ceremony. In fact, the team trained regularly in their spare time during the season to knock the leading teams off the top spot in the Pit Stop Challenge – and they succeeded.

Furthermore, changes made ahead of the Lausitzring weekend played a major role: whilst the mechanics in the pit crew remained the same, their positions and procedures were altered and optimised.

How does the Pit Stop Challenge’s points system work? The team that completes the fastest stop of the race receives three points. The second- and third-fastest teams receive two and one point respectively. The points are then totalled at the end.

No party, but seven bottles of limoncello

Comtoyou ended up with 25 points. The Swiss Ferrari team Emil Frey took second place with 22 points – and the Porsche championship-winning Manthey team finished third with 17 points. These three teams – together with the BMW team Schubert, which came fourth with 13 points – were the dominant crews of the year. All the others had fewer than ten points to their name.

How did the Comtoyou team celebrate their success? “We’re packing up and heading to Portimão,” said mechanic Planat at the awards ceremony. Instead of the party on Sunday evening, the team had to travel straight to Portugal for the GT World Challenge Europe finale, where they finished second in the title race the following weekend.

The team would certainly have been well equipped for a proper celebration. After all, the winning team of the Pit Stop Challenge receives a gift basket after every victory, which also contains a bottle of the Italian lemon liqueur Limoncello. And Comtoyou won seven times in 2026. “That’s quite a lot of bottles,” says Planat. And he jokingly announced: “They’ll already be empty by the time we get to Portimão.”