“20 seconds can feel like a lifetime,” Red Bull’s Chief Strategist opines on intense F1 pressure
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Hannah Schmitz
Red Bull has been in supreme form this season where they have managed to win 9 races in the first 13 rounds of 2022. While Max and Sergio have done a fine job behind the wheel of the RB18, the team’s Pit wall has also played a crucial role in keeping them ahead of its competitors.
Red Bull’s Chief Strategist, Hannah Schmitz has been in the spotlight in recent times and has revealed how she manages to keep herself calm under tense race situations.
Hannah is the one who is responsible for making decisions about Red Bull’s pit stop strategy and dictates when the drivers should be asked to come in for a tire change during races.
She received immense praise for the strategy that she employed during the Hungarian Grand Prix and while talking about her role in the team said, “It’s incredibly exciting. You almost do sit on the edge of your seat when you’ve made a decision.”
Schmitz has indicated that whenever she makes a decision everyone is on the edge of their seat wishing for the call to be right as nothing can be said for certain in F1.
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Red Bull has been helped by Hannah Schmitz’s decision-making skills in 2022
Red Bull is leading both the Championships at the moment and has got a big advantage over its direct rival Ferrari. While the Maranello-based team’s Pit Wall has made strategy blunders race after race, the same has not been the case with the Austrian team.
Red Bull has got an ace up their sleeves in the name of Hannah Schmitz and while discussing the Monaco Grand Prix Schmitz said, “So you make that split second decision, but then you’ve got maybe twenty seconds, which sounds like hardly any time to us right now, but in a race, sitting there waiting to see if your decision’s paid off, that can feel like a lifetime.”
The British Chief Strategist has stressed that it is important for teams to stay calm and maintain their composure in intense situations and feels it is the strategy group’s responsibility to be ready for anything considering the level of unpredictability of F1.
Moreover, she believes that adaptation is key during Grand Prix events as it often is the deciding factor between winning and coming away will losses. Going by how 2022 has panned out for Red Bull so far, it can be said that the team has been on point with its strategy calls this season and from the upcoming Belgian Grand Prix onwards, Ferrari is going to come hard at Red Bull and it will be once again up to Hannah and Co. to come up with the goods in order to help out Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez.
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Rishabh Negi
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