Hannah Schmitz: For us, the pit stop was obvious.

      The fate of the victory in Qatar was decided by a McLaren mistake: the team did not call their drivers in for a tyre change when the safety car came out, but everyone else did.

      A feature of the race was Pirelli’s specified maximum stint length of 25 laps on one set of tyres. At the time the safety car came out there were exactly 50 laps remaining to the finish, which divided perfectly into two permitted stints.

      Red Bull Racing’s chief strategist Hannah Schmitz became a co-author of Max Verstappen’s victory and climbed the podium, and afterwards commented on the situation on Viaplay.

      Hannah Schmitz: “Before the race we decided that if a safety car came out on lap seven or later, a pit stop would be mandatory. At that moment the ‘window’ for both the full and virtual safety car was opening, and without hesitation we called the drivers into the pits.

      For both cars the advantage of pitting under the safety car was so great, especially if you are forced to do two pit stops, that the decision was obvious to us. As it was to most teams on the pit lane.

      I was told that the McLaren cars had stayed out on track, and I asked again: ‘Are you sure we need to come in?’ And I said: ‘Yes, of course.’

      I think McLaren were in a difficult position because they wanted to give their drivers equal chances, and in that situation one of them would have had to wait while the other was serviced. That allowed us to use the situation to our advantage. It doesn’t make it any easier for them, of course. Maybe they hoped to build enough of a gap before their pit stop, I don’t know.”