‘Are you sure?’ – Red Bull colleagues doubted Schmitz’s lap-7 call

Red Bull’s chief strategist Hannah Schmitz has made a career out of bold calls, but her latest masterstroke at the Qatar Grand Prix may go down as one of her most decisive yet.

While McLaren looked poised to run away with a dominant 1–2 at Lusail, Schmitz stuck to her pre-conceived plan to immediately pit Max Verstappen in the event of an early Safety Car regime with steel-spined conviction - even as her Red Bull colleagues questioned her decision.

The inspired call – paired with McLaren strategic blunder – set the stage for Verstappen’s seventh victory of the season and sliced Lando Norris’s title lead over the Dutchman down to just 12 points ahead of next weekend’s Abu Dhabi finale.

‘Are you sure?’ – The Moment the Room Pushed Back

When Nico Hülkenberg and Pierre Gasly tangled on lap seven, the Safety Car rolled out and the window swung open for the plan Schmitz had mapped out long before lights out. But there was one unexpected twist: McLaren didn’t budge.

“Pre-race, that was exactly when our safety car and virtual safety car windows opened, and that was the plan,” Schmitz 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.”

Then came the curveball.

“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!’”

In the heat of moment, despite the pressure, Hannah’s faith didn’t waver.

“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,” he added.

“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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The logic was simple: with Pirelli’s 25-lap stint cap forcing every team into at least three stops, grabbing a free 26 seconds under the Safety Car was priceless.

Once Red Bull and nearly the entire field boxed, the McLarens were stranded in clean air with the pressure on – and the gamble backfired.

Verstappen surged to victory ahead of Oscar Piastri, while Norris slipped to fourth, losing crucial championship ground.

Schmitz Sees McLaren’s Dilemma

With Piastri arguably robbed of a likely win and now trailing Verstappen in the standings, McLaren’s decision not to pit – or even split its strategies – was quickly picked apart. Did the team sacrifice victory in the name of fairness between teammates?

Schmitz was sympathetic, but firm in her assessment.

“Maybe. I think they’re in a very difficult situation where they obviously want to treat the drivers fairly. And I guess we’re in a position to take advantage of that. So, yeah, I think that will be difficult for them,” she said.

“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.”

In the end, it was Schmitz’s clarity – and conviction – that proved decisive. While McLaren hesitated, Red Bull pounced. And now, with Abu Dhabi looming and the title fight white-hot, her lap-7 call may be remembered as the moment the championship truly swung.

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