Max Verstappen and Red Bull managed to get one over on McLaren at the Qatar Grand Prix, and they sent a ‘clear’ message to McLaren during the celebrations in parc ferme.
After F1 introduced a 25-lap mandatory limit on all compounds of tyres during the Grand Prix in Lusail, a safety car on lap seven looked to have played into the favour of everyone’s strategy for the day.
However, McLaren opted to run the original strategy that they had planned for Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris during the race, which came back to bite them upon the fall of the chequered flag.
Max Verstappen took the net lead of the race after Piastri and Norris pitted on laps 24 and 25, respectively, and brought home the win to keep his title hopes alive for the season-closer in Abu Dhabi this weekend.
The Dutchman is just 12 points behind Norris in the hunt for the 2025 title. Piastri saw himself move down into third for the first time since the Bahrain GP, 16 points behind the championship leader.
Christian Danner points out the ‘obvious’ message that Red Bull sent to McLaren during Qatar Grand Prix celebrations
As a downtrodden Piastri and an elated Verstappen exited their cars at parc ferme in preparation for the post-race shenanigans, Red Bull elected the cool and collected mastermind behind the strategy call, Hannah Schmitz, to receive the trophy for the winning constructor.
In a post-Qatar Grand Prix podcast with Motorsport Magazin, former F1 driver Christian Danner stated that he believes the Austrian constructor chose Schmitz to receive the trophy in order to send a message to McLaren.
The 67-year-old said, “Of course, Hannah Schmitz, the chief strategist at Red Bull, was on the podium. They deliberately sent her up there, that’s obvious.
“To show everyone, ‘Hey, look, this is what proper strategy looks like.’ Of course, this is psychological warfare, which is part and parcel of every instance, and Red Bull does it well, no question about it.”
Having served as the principal strategy engineer at Red Bull since 2021, Schmitz has been credited with some of the greatest split-second calls that have decided races in favour of the Milton Keynes-based team in recent years.
Her decisions made during the 2022 F1 season, namely in Monaco, Hungary and the Netherlands, were a few of the many reasons why she was awarded the Female Engineer of the Year that year.
Hannah Schmitz explains why pitting Max Verstappen on lap seven was ‘the right thing to do’
Following the conclusion of the race, Schmitz was interviewed by ViaPlay, where she was asked about the decision to box both RB21s on lap seven.
The strategist explained, via Autosport, “Pre-race, that was exactly when our safety car and virtual safety car windows opened, and that was the plan.
“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 pitlane 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, okay, that’s fine.”
- READ MORE: Yuki Tsunoda’s claim about Max Verstappen at the Qatar GP has come too late to save his F1 career
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