At the end of Tuesday night’s dizzying 2-2 draw at Bayern Munich, Real Madrid’s press officer moved quickly to find Vinicius Junior on the pitch and give him a training top.

With the Brazilian half-naked after exchanging shirts with Bayern substitute Bryan Zaragoza, it was as if the visitors didn’t want him to catch a cold. That’s because Madrid can’t afford anything like a scare with their star player, who had just pulled his team out of the fire with their two goals in this Champions League semi-final’s first leg.

He did it playing as a No 9 and on a night when the 14-time European Cup/Champions League winners were facing Harry Kane, the striker their coach Carlo Ancelotti had asked for in vain last summer.

Madrid’s interest did not go beyond testing the waters for Kane and the England captain ended up joining Bayern from Tottenham Hotspur. Ancelotti’s squad instead welcomed a then 33-year-old Joselu on loan, who had just been relegated with Espanyol. In an injury-hit season that has also left him short of centre-backs as well as strikers, the Italian coach has become an expert in survival.

In the first part of it, he invented a new position for Jude Bellingham, another summer arrival, who scored 17 goals in 21 appearances before the Christmas break. In the second half, he has helped Vinicius Jr reach new levels while gradually centring his position, even converting him into a leader of Madrid’s forward line.

Vinicius Jr’s first goal last night was the work of a pure striker, a clever run to make space in behind, a clinical cool finish beyond the approaching Manuel Neuer. The Brazilian ran to the corner flag in celebration, kissed the Madrid badge on his shirt, danced and spread his arms like Bellingham does after he scores, before walking back onto the pitch.

Vinicius Jr bowing to Kroos after the opening goal (Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP via Getty Images)

There, he bowed to Toni Kroos, around whom more than half their team-mates had already gathered. Playing at his former home ground, Kroos’ through ball for the goal was a thing of beauty. Even though he played it down afterwards.

“A lot of credit to Vini, he offered me the pass with his movement. As I know him, he always goes into space. The pass wasn’t that special,” Kroos said.

“We train a lot together and we know each other very well,” said Vinicius Jr, who became only the fourth man in Champions League history to score in three straight semi-final legs.

But Madrid had started the game badly, very badly. And Ancelotti had been very, very angry.

In the 10th minute, he turned and stuck out four fingers at his son and assistant coach Davide, complaining about the number of times their players had lost possession already. Substitutes Eder Militao and Dani Ceballos stood up from the bench to add to the direction and encouragement shouted towards the field of play.

That mood changed suddenly when, about 15 minutes later, Kroos and Vinicius Jr combined with their devastatingly simple move for the opening goal. Kroos received the ball in midfield and immediately spotted what should happen next, pointing the way for his team-mate. Vinicius Jr saw what he meant and executed. It was out of the blue. Bayern were caught out, although their head coach Thomas Tuchel had almost predicted it.

GO DEEPER

The Briefing: Bayern 2 Real Madrid 2 – Advantage Ancelotti and Kroos for Ballon d’Or?

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“If you look at their goals or their chances and rewind 10 seconds, you don’t see them coming,” Tuchel has said before the game.

In the second half, Bayern came back strongly. Leroy Sane’s powerful strike caused havoc. On the sidelines, Ancelotti scolded Vinicius Jr and Aurelien Tchouameni. Four minutes later, while Kane prepared to take the penalty that put the home side 2-1 up and international team-mate Bellingham tried to put him off, Vinicius Jr had another quick meeting with the Ancelottis.

And, as he has done so many times before, the Brazilian led the rebellion on the big stage.

Madrid did not give up, they never do. Their fans, who approached the game like it was a final, with 4,000 in the away stand at the Allianz Arena, chanted “Hasta el final, vamos Real!” (“Until the end, let’s go Real!”).

In the 83rd minute, when Vinicius Jr’s smart feet found Rodrygo in the box, there was no doubt who would take the penalty after the latter was fouled. Vinicius Jr had scored from the spot against Barcelona in El Clasico nine days previously and he would take the responsibility again. Lucas Vazquez retrieved the ball and pushed away a couple of Bayern players who were trying to bother his team-mate.

Vinicius Jr set it down carefully and wiped the sweat from his face with his shirt. The noise was almost deafening.

But Madrid’s Brazilian talisman slipped softly through the pressure. He scored again and again went to the corner to celebrate. Objects thrown from the stands landed around him as he crowned the moment by pointing to the No 7 on his back — the same as was worn for so long at Madrid by his idol Cristiano Ronaldo.

In sending that penalty past Neuer, he reached 32 goal contributions (21 goals and 11 assists) for Madrid this season, nudging ahead of Bellingham by one.

🤳 @ViniJr 🤳#UCL pic.twitter.com/RIBxnYbZWg

— Real Madrid C.F. (@realmadrid) April 30, 2024

According to data provider Opta, since the start of the 2021-22 season, he has been directly involved in more goals in the Champions League than any other player (31 in total; 16 goals and 15 assists).

This is Vinicius Jr, a total player who has evolved so much that he could also be the striker Ancelotti wanted last summer.

“I’m very happy to be able to score two goals,” he said from the touchline after the game, having been named player of the match. “Now it’s time for a magical night at home.”

It all summed up the merit of Ancelotti, his staff and Vinicius Jr — having an idea to fill a gap and developing it well to the point where a left-winger can be the best player in a Champions League semi-final away leg while playing up front.

“Now he has learned to move well without the ball, moving at the back of the rivals,” Ancelotti said. “And then he’s very cold in front of goal.”

(Top photo: Daniel Kopatsch/Getty Images)

Between the Racing Lines | Formula One is complicated, confusing and constantly evolving. This story is part of our guide to help any fan — regardless of how long they’ve watched the sport or how they discovered it — navigate the pinnacle of motorsports.

Box, box.

Every Formula One fan is familiar with that radio message, the call for a driver to head in for a pit stop. Whether it’s changing tires, serving a time penalty or repairing damage, the pit stop is one of the most strategically important moments during any grand prix. The longer you spend off the track, the farther behind you fall. McLaren holds the world record for the fastest pit stop — 1.80 seconds, set during the 2023 Qatar Grand Prix — but no team has matched the consistency of Red Bull’s blazing pace.

For each of the last six seasons, the Milton Keynes-based team has won the DHL Fastest Pit Stop Award based on their stop times throughout the year. They should repeat in 2024, holding nine of the 10 fastest stops over the last five races. The top three came from the Chinese Grand Prix weekend, where Red Bull stunned the F1 world with two flawless double stacks, changing the tires on Max Verstappen and Sergio Pérez’s cars in rapid succession. The first took 4.18 seconds; the second, 3.95 seconds.

Best double stack ever? 🤔⏱️#F1 || #ChineseGP 🇨🇳pic.twitter.com/V8iSDF7Y8e

— Oracle Red Bull Racing (@redbullracing) April 21, 2024

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Whether a routine stop or a double stack, pit stops are choreographed dances. They begin the moment activity buzzes in the garage as more than 20 team members hurry out to their positions in the pitlane, waiting for the drivers to pull into the box. As Jonathan Wheatley, Red Bull’s Sporting Director, said, “Your perfect pitstop involves everyone having that perfect two seconds.”

It’s a game of millimeters and milliseconds. Here’s how it goes down.

The positions

Pit stops are a whirlwind of noise and speed, typically taking 2.5 seconds or less. The drivers need to hit their marks within the outlined area, and the crew members then jack up the front and back of the car, swap out the four wheels, and lower the car — all in unison when nailed perfectly.

“You get a buzz,” said Phil Turner, the team’s chief mechanic. “You get that adrenaline rush that you know you’ve had a good pit stop. You just tell by the sound, the noise, and how quick the car drops.”

It starts with the people, all of whom hold other team positions in addition to being on the pit crew. Teams are limited by how many people can be trackside, and some roles require people to be at computers when pit stops unfold. Wheatley described a pit stop as “an endeavor by 22 human beings.”

The wheels

Number of people: 12

This grouping is a trio per wheel — wheel off, wheel on and a wheel gunman. For wheel off and wheel on, strength is a requirement, said Jack Harrison, a mechanic on the team and a ‘wheel on’ member. Each wheel weighs over 44 pounds (20 kg). “You’ve got to have some sort of size to be able to manipulate the wheel to where you want it to be.”

The call is typically given around 15 seconds out, and the ‘wheel on’ crew carries the tires from the garage to the pit box. All three at the four tire locations crouch, and the wheel gunman readies to loosen and tighten the wheel nuts as the car slams to a halt. “I don’t ever think the car’s gonna hit me,” said wheel gunman Callum Adams. That doesn’t mean it can’t happen, but it’s a matter of trusting the driver will stop where they’ve practiced. Adams’ favorite part of his role is his proximity to the car because when it’s dropped, he can see the clutch engage and the wheels spin.

What may surprise fans about the wheel off, wheel on process is that the wheel nut stays attached to the tire itself. The wheel gunman loosens the wheel nut before the car has stopped, Adams said, and they’re working “on the wheel nut for the new wheel before it’s even on the car. That’s where you make up the time.” The ‘wheel off’ crew member is taking the tire off as the car is coming off the ground, thanks to the jacks.

Jackmen

Number of people: 4

This grouping includes two main players: a front and rear jackman.

Because the cars are so low to the ground, both jacks need to lift at the same time. If the car stops short, front jackman Chris Gent said he struggles “to get the jack under the car because the car is so low, and the jack will only go under really when the car is on all four wheels.” If the rear jack lifts before the front, Gent says he has to signal for the car to be lowered to fit his jack under the car.

“It’s also awkward (if) they stop on the first few laps of a race when the car has a full amount of fuel, and then the car is so much heavier than whether it’s midway or towards the end,” Gent added. “It feels completely different to jack it up when it’s a lap or two into the race.”

Each jack is different, but Gent described his as one that can rotate and has two levers, one that releases the jack and the other that allows the jack to tilt.

“When the car arrives, we jack it up, and you can jack it to a certain point, and then you can relax because it has two little feet that come out so the car is always at the same height, which is obviously quite important for the gunmen,” Gent said. He later added that, in theory, the jackmen don’t have to pull the lever to release the jack, which drops the car to the ground, but he does so in case there is a failure in the lights system.

There are spare jackmen for both positions, just in case of an issue. If a front wing is damaged, teams will use a side jack instead and replace the wing.

Gent has been hit by a car before but “never any real damage other than being knocked back quite a long way.” When it comes to getting over the initial reaction to jump out of the way of a moving vehicle, Gent said, “A lot of it is down to trust, isn’t it?”

Car steadier 

Number of people: 2

When the car is lifted, two people grab hold of the cockpit area, keeping it stable as other crew members do their work. If needed, they may clean the mirrors or radiators.

Front wing adjuster

Number of people: 2

These crew members help make aerodynamic changes to the wing, which impact understeer or oversteer based on the driver’s feedback.

Lollipop (aka the green light) 

This resembles how NASCAR teams hold out a sign as drivers enter the pit box. Within the world of F1, this individual would give the signal for when the car can release, but over time, it’s become more electronic. A system now indicates when the driver can leave the pit box.

The guns and jacks are essentially linked to a traffic light system of sorts, but the decision of when the car is released lies with the crew member with the override button, who monitors pit lane traffic. The green lights indicate the wheels are secure, and once there is space for a safe release, the driver gets the go-ahead to exit the pit box. If the stewards deem a pit box exit to be unsafe release, drivers may face a five-second time penalty.

The practice

Teams practice pit stops during a race weekend, and fans can watch from pit lane or their seats during certain windows. But these sessions also take place back at the factory, both in and out of the season. Harrison said Red Bull will practice anywhere from five to 20 pit stops during these sessions. Wheatley commented how, with Red Bull, “your first pitstop is likely to be for a race win.”

However, as Harrison noted, there is work that is done before a “real physical practice,” like what fans see during a race weekend. Whether it’s with the entire crew or just the specific group, like the corner crews, they’ll visualize the pit stops with props. Harrison said, “We’ll be using those to be able to help you. Even just with the movements, not necessarily the weight of the wheel.” It’s about being limber and warming up for the real deal.

Practicing with the entire pit stop team is easier, he said, because a big component of an efficient stop is listening to each other. As part of the corner crew, he finds it helpful to hear the jackmen and the four-wheel guns, but he can also see the different parts of the pit stop in his peripheral vision. Each grouping has slightly different techniques, so practicing with the same people becomes a strength.

“The size of people doesn’t make a difference,” Harrison said. “The amount of time you’ve been doing it with the same people makes a difference because I will put my foot in a certain position, which may be different to the left rear side. I’ll wedge my foot underneath the (wheel) gunman’s knee, and then I can feel where he moves. And then with sight as well, I can see where he moves so I can move to him.

“So if the car goes long or short, he’ll move his body to react to that, whereas I’ll do the same with my body to where his body moves.”

Given the length of the F1 season and because life happens, teams do select backups for each position. During practice, people swap in and out.

As for physical requirements, Harrison said core strength, stability, overall strength, and cardio are all key, and the crew works towards staying nimble. For the wheel on position, for example, core and leg exercises are helpful because you’re essentially in a squat position, waiting to fit the wheel to the car, Harrison said. Adams said that flexibility and core strength are important for the wheel gunman because if the car stops short or long, they need to adjust quickly while being low to the ground, not losing their balance.

An effective pit stop extends beyond the physical. It’s about the senses and muscle memory. The Milton Keynes-based team decided to try executing a pit stop in complete darkness during the off-season, and Adams said, “It made everyone sort of realize how much their role was done on feel and muscle memory.”

The final product

A pit stop technically begins the day before a race, Wheatley said.

That’s when the team discusses race strategy. Come race day, he’ll brief the team if there could be something unusual coming, and they’ll perform a series of stops during their routine practice session, mixing it up some to prepare. During the race, Wheatley keeps the team up to speed on how the race is unfolding strategically. Pit stops are about nailing the right timing, such as trying to do the opposite strategy of a rival to gain positions. Wheatley said, “Generally, we make a decision to pit, I think, later than some teams would be comfortable with. We like to have a team that can react very quickly and in a very short lead time ahead of a pit stop.”

When it looks like the call to pit is coming, Wheatley begins preparing the team, not getting too excited. “If I’m calm, everyone should be calm.”

Then comes the countdown. The crew members file out of the garage in a specific order to avoid getting in each other’s way, Gent said. Typically, the farthest people will leave first, he added, “so you’re not climbing over people to get to your position.”

Any number of things could go wrong during a pit stop, like a wheel gun failure (which is why they have spares). Mistakes do happen, like jacks not engaging properly on the first try. But as much as a smooth pit stop depends on the crew members, it’s also about the driver’s approach, specifically “the speed and consistency of deceleration into the pit box,” Wheatley said. If drivers don’t hit their marks, the other twenty-some crew members will need to adjust. That awareness also applies to the crew, particularly with the group changing the wheel. Sometimes the tires touch during the swap, and as Wheatley said, “When they touch, that’s when you get your 2.6-second stop and not a 2-second stop or a 1.8-second stop. So it’s down to marginal gains from that point.”

Another factor that can impact timings is the depth of the pit crew. In 2023, Wheatley said, Red Bull “faced immense challenges” with keeping a consistent first team because of the number of races, where they fell on the calendar, illness (a stomach bug floated around the Mexico City paddock, for example), and other life matters, like children being born. This is where the reserves come into play.

“Whilst it doesn’t mean you can do a 1.8-second pit stop every weekend, that’s not actually our target,” Wheatley said. “And so we need to have enough people trained and able to do 2.2-second pit stops every single time the car comes in the pits. And we’ve been lucky enough that we haven’t had such an illness that’s compromised that.”

At the heart of every pit stop are the people and the seamless teamwork. Each person’s routine is different, down to whether they watch the car come down pit lane or when they snap down their visor. Then comes the rhythm — stop, lift, wheels (and the loud whirring that comes with the guns), drop and release. Pit stops are a staple of an F1 grand prix weekend, yet each person describes the strategic event differently.

Turner opted for “a massive adrenaline rush.” Adams described them as “exhilarating” while Harrison chose “rewarding.”

Truthfully, it’s an art.

(Graphics by Drew Jordan/The Athletic. Lead image: Bryn Lennon – Formula 1/Formula 1 via Getty Images; Design: Eamonn Dalton/The Athletic)

Imagine having done the same thing for something like 30 years, being better at it than just about anyone who has ever lived, and then one day, it’s all completely new. 

And so it is for Rafael Nadal in this through-the-looking-glass spring. For years, no place felt more like home than a red clay court. He could lose matches sometimes. Everyone does. But he almost never played poorly.

He could leave his guts on the court with an effort that would leave most of the population unable to walk for weeks. Then he would wake up in the morning and, within a few hours, be able to start preparing to do it all over again. And then, sometimes, he really would do it all over again.

Those days are done, perhaps never to return. Nearly a year and a half since a debilitating hip injury, nearly a year since major surgery to try to fix it, nearly two years since he was a mainstay of the professional tour, each match, each day, has become an experiment and a riddle for Nadal. 

How much can he push? How long can he go? How does his body feel when he opens his eyes for the first time each morning, when he rolls out of bed, when he leans over to pick up his 18-month-old son, Rafa, when he walks onto the court for a warm-up session and strokes the ball for the first time? 

The latest test came Tuesday night against Jiri Lehecka, the talented young Czech with the limber physique and easy power that Nadal, always the brutalist, never had. But nothing about the match really had anything to do with the contrasts he and Nadal presented, or really even the score. 

This was all about the latest of Nadal’s experiments.

A little more than 24 hours before he and Lehecka took the court, Nadal had gone three sets and more than three hours against Pedro Cachin of Argentina. In both matches, the most important numbers on the scoreboard were counting the elapsed time. How many rolling backhands and bullwhip forehands could Nadal endure, or even want to endure, with his lodestar, the French Open, starting in 26 days.

Nadal is balancing fitness and pride in his final season (Mateo Villalba/Getty Images)

The first set went 57 minutes, with Lehecka surviving three tight service holds and capitalizing on a cluster of Nadal errors in the 11th game to break, before serving out the set. Lehecka then broke Nadal’s serve in the first game of the second set. Nadal’s balls started to fly long and into the net without it bothering him all that much, and it was hard not to think of how he had described his game plan moving forward the night before, after his three-hour fist-fight with Cachin. 

“Trying without doing crazy things, but trying,” he said, which is what Lehecka’s 7-5, 6-4 win that lasted a little over two hours ultimately looked like.

A third set and another hour might have qualified as a crazy thing under the circumstances.

Cachin, a 29-year-old journeyman who knows his way around a clay court, had given Nadal as much as he could handle and more than anyone had expected, digging in for long fights for points, forcing him to scramble across the baseline. A few years ago, this would have been another day of certainty for Nadal: the clay, the winning, the looking ahead to the next match knowing — within a very small margin — what version of himself would take the court. 

Instead, he walked the corridors of the Caja Magica Monday night, shrugging his shoulders and shaking his head, and telling everyone who would listen that he had no idea what the future held. 

“I never recovered too bad after tough matches, I think even at 36 years old or 35,” said Nadal, who is now nearly 38. “Today is a completely different story. It’s not only about injuries. First thing is injuries. Second thing is about… I never spent almost two years without playing tennis tournaments.”

Everyone knows what this is all about for Nadal — figuring out whether it’s going to be worth his while to put his name in the draw at the French Open, the tournament he has won 14 times, where his record at Roland Garros is a ridiculous 112-3. He’s not going to go merely for an ovation and a bouquet, or to gaze at the nine-foot statue of him outside Court Philippe Chatrier.

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He knows his tennis is there, but he will only go if he believes his body will be there, too. This is best-of-five-set tennis, on clay, and matches are affairs that generally last close to three hours, maybe longer. His serve in its current iteration, slowed by injuries to his midsection, isn’t allowing him to grab many quick and easy points. Nearly everything he gets, he has to earn the hard way. Late in the second set on Tuesday night, 40 per cent of Lehecka’s serves had gone unreturned, allowing him to speed through holds of serve already rendered tricky by the booms of “Rafa, Rafa, Rafa” about his ears every time he stood up to the line. Asked about how he dealt with them, the Czech world No 31 could only puff out his cheeks and say, “I don’t know.”

Nadal’s figure was six per cent.

Nadal was ultimately unable to impose himself on Lehecka (Julian Finney/Getty Images)

He will have a day off between matches at the French Open, unlike the 24-hour turnaround from Cachin to Lehecka, but still, the past days in Madrid have brought his first experience in what feels like forever of the grind-recover-grind routine the sport demands. 

Ten days ago in Barcelona, he couldn’t do it, winning a match then essentially folding after losing the first set of a second. Had he pushed for more in that moment, he might have been back where he was in January, in a tuneup tournament in Brisbane ahead of the Australian Open. There, in his third match, he pushed too soon. He went to sleep with a tweak. In the morning, an MRI revealed it was a tear. Three months of recovery and many more moments of doubt ensued.

Maybe this was it? He could swing a racket, but anything close to trying to replicate the intensity of top-level competition was out of the question. Same with an intense three-hour training session. He just wasn’t strong enough. 

Madrid has been different. His strength is back, but it’s not chartable: he still doesn’t have any idea what will happen from one day to the next. 

“It’s unpredictable, that’s it, and you need to accept the unpredictable things today,” he said earlier this week. “I need to accept that.”

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In a sense, Nadal has been preparing for this moment for more than 20 years, ever since doctors detected a congenital defect in his foot that nearly derailed his career before it ever got started. He had to accept then an extremely uncertain future. Anything that followed was a kind of gift. 

The experience begat ‘Zen-Rafa,’ the player who years ago compared an opponent’s aces to the rain, something he had no control over and simply accepted. Now he was back where it all started and not just because he said Madrid is where he felt for the first time, back in 2003, that he could compete at the highest level.

Sure, Nadal would have preferred to win once again in this packed metal bandbox in front of 12,000 people who love him as they love little else. He is as big a sports hero as this country has ever produced, which Raul Gonzalez Blanco, the legendary Real Madrid and Spain striker, knows well. He was there watching against Cachin.

But Nadal knew he had already won by being able to answer the bell against Lehecka, something he could only hope he would be able to do when he closed his eyes the night before. Picking up some easy points on his serve marked another win. Those classic, loop-one-ball-then-crush-the-next-one combinations, the quick bends for the short-hop winners, the perfect slice volley when he followed his serve into the net midway through the second set — win, win, win. 

The moment when he sprinted to the baseline from his chair, one game from defeat, and 12,000 people stood and roared, and the noise rattled all around the metal building — that may have been the biggest win of all. They did it again on match point, then chanted his name when he sprayed a final backhand wide on what is likely his final match in the city.

Madrid’s tribute to Nadal after his defeat (Julian Finney/Getty Images)

He described the night as “very positive in many senses, not only sporting but also emotionally.”

“It’s been a gift to spend 21 years here,” Nadal told the crowd during a celebration on the court after the match. “The emotions, of playing in Madrid, playing on this court, are going to stay with me forever.”

Still, as much as Nadal has accepted the uncertainty of the future and soaking up the love, he is also making plans. He is playing himself into form now, trying to pass tests with every match so he can dream of magic, not just at the French Open but after, too. 

The Olympic Games are at Roland Garros. He wants to at least play doubles there with Carlos Alcaraz, who is well on his way to taking over from Nadal in the Spanish tennis imagination. Last week he committed to play the Laver Cup, the Team Europe vs Team World competition that his friend and rival Roger Federer created. That’s in September. 

Madrid brought four matches in six days. Assuming his body comes through all this, he will head to Rome for the Italian Open next week for another series of tests. Then comes the decision about the French Open.

That’s both imminent and a ways away. Nadal, who, in all his greatness has still somehow always managed to come off as a normalish guy, is day to day, as the saying goes — just as we all are.

(Top photo: Manuel Queimadelos/Quality Sport Images/Getty Images)