diff --git a/doctr/models/recognition/vitstr/pytorch.py b/doctr/models/recognition/vitstr/pytorch.py
index 86ee9f6f1a..ba5bbf2568 100644
--- a/doctr/models/recognition/vitstr/pytorch.py
+++ b/doctr/models/recognition/vitstr/pytorch.py
@@ -90,11 +90,16 @@ def forward(
         return_model_output: bool = False,
         return_preds: bool = False,
     ) -> dict[str, Any]:
-        features = self.feat_extractor(x)["features"]  # (batch_size, patches_seqlen, d_model)
+        features = self.feat_extractor(x)[
+            "features"
+        ]  # (batch_size, patches_seqlen, d_model)
 
         if target is not None:
             _gt, _seq_len = self.build_target(target)
-            gt, seq_len = torch.from_numpy(_gt).to(dtype=torch.long), torch.tensor(_seq_len)
+            gt, seq_len = (
+                torch.from_numpy(_gt).to(dtype=torch.long),
+                torch.tensor(_seq_len),
+            )
             gt, seq_len = gt.to(x.device), seq_len.to(x.device)
 
         if self.training and target is None:
@@ -104,7 +109,9 @@ def forward(
         features = features[:, : self.max_length]  # (batch_size, max_length, d_model)
         B, N, E = features.size()
         features = features.reshape(B * N, E)
-        logits = self.head(features).view(B, N, len(self.vocab) + 1)  # (batch_size, max_length, vocab + 1)
+        logits = self.head(features).view(
+            B, N, len(self.vocab) + 1
+        )  # (batch_size, max_length, vocab + 1)
         decoded_features = _bf16_to_float32(logits[:, 1:])  # remove cls_token
 
         out: dict[str, Any] = {}
@@ -149,15 +156,23 @@ def compute_loss(
         # Input length : number of steps
         input_len = model_output.shape[1]
         # Add one for additional <eos> token (sos disappear in shift!)
-        seq_len = seq_len + 1
+        seq_len_ = seq_len + 1  # Do not mutate input tensor, use a temporary variable
+
         # Compute loss: don't forget to shift gt! Otherwise the model learns to output the gt[t-1]!
         # The "masked" first gt char is <sos>.
-        cce = F.cross_entropy(model_output.permute(0, 2, 1), gt[:, 1:], reduction="none")
+        cce = F.cross_entropy(
+            model_output.permute(0, 2, 1), gt[:, 1:], reduction="none"
+        )
         # Compute mask
-        mask_2d = torch.arange(input_len, device=model_output.device)[None, :] >= seq_len[:, None]
-        cce[mask_2d] = 0
+        # The mask is True for positions to be masked (steps >= length)
+        # Scope performance: avoid repeated shape allocations by computing contiguous mask directly
+        row_range = torch.arange(input_len, device=model_output.device)
+        mask_2d = row_range.unsqueeze(0) >= seq_len_.unsqueeze(1)
+
+        # In-place zeroing masked entries reduces memory use vs. advanced assignment
+        cce.masked_fill_(mask_2d, 0)
 
-        ce_loss = cce.sum(1) / seq_len.to(dtype=model_output.dtype)
+        ce_loss = cce.sum(dim=1) / seq_len_.to(dtype=model_output.dtype)
         return ce_loss.mean()
 
 
@@ -183,7 +198,8 @@ def __call__(
         ]
         # compute probabilties for each word up to the EOS token
         probs = [
-            preds_prob[i, : len(word)].clip(0, 1).mean().item() if word else 0.0 for i, word in enumerate(word_values)
+            preds_prob[i, : len(word)].clip(0, 1).mean().item() if word else 0.0
+            for i, word in enumerate(word_values)
         ]
 
         return list(zip(word_values, probs))
@@ -222,7 +238,9 @@ def _vitstr(
     if pretrained:
         # The number of classes is not the same as the number of classes in the pretrained model =>
         # remove the last layer weights
-        _ignore_keys = ignore_keys if _cfg["vocab"] != default_cfgs[arch]["vocab"] else None
+        _ignore_keys = (
+            ignore_keys if _cfg["vocab"] != default_cfgs[arch]["vocab"] else None
+        )
         model.from_pretrained(default_cfgs[arch]["url"], ignore_keys=_ignore_keys)
 
     return model