Red Bull Principal Strategy Engineer Hannah Schmitz explained there was scepticism on the pit wall about the race-winning decision to pit Max Verstappen under the Safety Car in Formula 1‘s Qatar Grand Prix.
The Dutchman took a superb victory in Doha, in what was a demonstration of quick thinking and opportunism from the Milton Keynes-based squad.
A collision between Nico Hulkenberg and Pierre Gasly triggered a Safety Car on Lap 7, with Verstappen second, between his title rivals Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris.
With a mandatory maximum of 25 laps on one set of tyres imposed before the race, the majority of the field opted to box and double-stack its cars once the Safety Car was called.
But McLaren did not, leaving Piastri and Norris out, which proved to be a damaging move.
Verstappen then made his second stop on Lap 32, and with a set of Hard tyres bolted on, he produced a stint that saw him pull out an unassailable gap.
It gave the Dutchman the victory he needed to maintain his title challenge, and is now just 12 points behind Norris going into the final round in Abu Dhabi this weekend.
After the race, Schmitz, who claimed the Constructors’ race victory trophy on the podium, revealed the decision was met with doubts on the pit wall, despite it always being a pre-planned move in the event of a Safety Car
“Pre-race, that was exactly when our safety car and virtual Safety Car windows opened, and that was the plan,” she told ViaPlay.
“So, pit both cars if the Safety Car came out on lap seven. There’s such an advantage to pitting under a Safety Car when you’ve got to do the two stops that, to us, that was a clear thing we should do. And I guess a lot of the pit lane felt the same.
“But obviously on that in-lap we’re hearing ‘Oh, McLaren are staying out’. Everyone’s like, ‘Are you sure? Are you sure you want to pit?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, I really think so!’
“I thought, ‘definitely that’s the right thing to do’. And then as soon as I saw everybody else coming in as well, I thought, ‘OK, that’s fine’. Although it meant you have no flexibility at all when you make the second stop, just the advantage of gaining that much time.”
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Red Bull’s added advantage is its prioritising of Verstappen, with much focus aimed his way, with McLaren maintaining its principles of equality between Norris and Piastri.
Asked whether it indeed gives Red Bull the edge on the papaya squad, Schmitz was left to conclude that, in some way, it will give them and Verstappen an edge of sorts.
“Maybe. I think they’re in a very difficult situation where they obviously want to treat the drivers fairly,” she said. “And I guess we’re in a position to take advantage of that. So, yeah, I think that will be difficult for them.
“But also they have a fair amount of pace compared to the rest of the field. And maybe they were hoping they could pull out the pitstop gaps and maybe they were also concerned with kind of doing those maximum 25-lap stints.
“I’m not McLaren, so I don’t know, but that’s a possibility.”
READ MORE – Max Verstappen takes F1 title to the wire as Red Bull outsmarts McLaren in Qatar GP
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