Max Verstappen’s ‘most important’ Red Bull ally who showed up McLaren | F1 | Sport
Red Bull fans heaped praise upon strategy chief Hannah Schmitz after Max Verstappen won the Qatar Grand Prix. The Dutchman’s team avoided making the same calamitous mistake as McLaren, who early in the race decided against pitting their drivers when the safety car came out following a Nico Hulkenberg crash.
That was the cue for most of the cars on track to dive into the pit lane for a change of tyres, though McLaren decided against it. They kept race leader Oscar Piastri out on track as well as team-mate Lando Norris, who rose from third to second when Verstappen stopped for fresh rubber but quickly questioned over the radio whether it was the right thing to do.
In the end, it was proven that McLaren got it wrong. Norris was told by race engineer Will Joseph that they had decided against stopping because Red Bull had “lost all their flexibility for the rest of the race”, but neither Piastri nor Norris had the pace to make up for losing track position to Verstappen and ended up finishing second and fourth respectively.
As is customary, a Red Bull team member was selected to join Verstappen on the podium to collect the trophy for the winning constructor. Principal strategy engineer Schmitz was chosen to spray the champagne on stage with the Dutchman and fans were quick to hail both that choice and also her work on the pit wall.
One fan wrote on social media: “That is incredibly lovely to see Hannah Schmitz, principal strategy engineer, collecting the constructors’ trophy for Red Bull Racing.” Another said: “It does feel special seeing a woman up there on the podium having been an instrumental part of Red Bull’s win today.”
A third fan declared: “Hannah Schmitz is the best thing ever happened to Red Bull.” And a fourth agreed: “Hannah Schmitz is the most important person in Red Bull. Period.” A fifth added: “What pride to see Hannah Schmitz lifting the trophy alongside Max Verstappen. She deserves it so much for everything she did over these years at Red Bull.”
Asked how he had reacted when he saw that McLaren had decided against pitting behind the safety car, Verstappen said in his parc ferme interview: “I was like, ‘That is an interesting move’. This was an incredible race for us, we made the right call to box under that safety car. A strong race for us on a weekend that was tough.”
Piastri, who is now third in the championship and 16 points off the lead with just one race remaining, said: “We didn’t get it right tonight. I drove the best race I could as fast as I could, but there was nothing left out there. I did my best but it wasn’t to be tonight, unfortunately. In hindsight, I think it’s pretty obvious what we should have done but I’m sure we’ll discuss it as a team.”
