Red Bull strategist Schmitz: 'You don't always have to do what's fastest'

Not only do Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez currently have the best car on the F1 grid, they also have an excellent team of strategists. On several occasions already, the 'people at the pit wall' have ensured that Red Bull Racing eventually left the track with the top prize. Hannah Schmitz, as Principal Strategy Engineer, is of great value in this respect.

Every other race, Hannah Schmitz sits at Red Bull's pit wall. In fact, she splits her duties with a colleague, who works from the factory in Milton Keynes on such weekends. Schmitz has since become a household name, not least because she is one of the few women in a managerial position at a Formula 1 team.

Being ahead of competitors

Through studies at Cambridge University, she joined Red Bull as a trainee. That turned into a full-time job the moment a colleague left. She started as a modelling and simulation engineer, before moving to a role in the strategy department a few years later. "It’s not about always running the race in the fastest possible way", Schmitz said in conversation with The Athletic. "It’s about beating your competitors and finishing ahead of them on track. And that’s not always doing what’s fastest."

How good Schmitz is at her job was shown in Hungary in 2022. Partly because of the strategy, Verstappen still managed to take victory from spot 10. "It involved, obviously, having a great driver and a fast car," Schmitz told me modestly. "“But also, there were quite a lot of strategic decisions that were made throughout that helped." Verstappen realised this all too well. After that race, he mentioned Schmitz in the media as a decisive factor that afternoon.