Red Bull mastermind reveals late strategy switch to avoid McLaren error

Red Bull F1's principal strategy engineer Hannah Schmitz has revealed how the team almost fell into the same trap as McLaren at the Qatar Grand Prix.

Max Verstappen claimed victory in the main race to take the championship to the final race of the season in Abu Dhabi, and was able to control the race after a huge strategy error from McLaren.

After an early safety car was called, Lando Norris and race leader Oscar Piastri opted to stay out, but Verstappen and almost every other driver came into the pits, in what seemed like a fairly straightforward call, particularly with the race being a mandatory two-stop race.

Schmitz and Red Bull took a gamble with the call to do something completely different to the team's two championship rivals, but it massively paid off, and Verstappen was never under any threat for the race win from that moment onwards.

After the race, it was Schmitz who went up onto the podium as Red Bull's representative to collect the trophy alongside Verstappen, and she spoke to media about the temptations for the team to blindly follow McLaren's howler.

"On that in lap, we're hearing 'McLaren are staying out' and everyone is like 'Are you sure? Are you sure you want to pit?' And I was like 'Yeah, I really do," Schmitz said.

"I thought, no, that's definitely the right thing to do."

Verstappen firmly in championship contention

Verstappen's win at the Lusail International Circuit means that we head into the final race of the season not knowing who will win the drivers' championship for the first time since 2021.

On that occasion, Verstappen snatched the championship from Lewis Hamilton on the last lap of the last race of the season, and he has since gone on to cruise to three more championships.

This time around, another British driver in Norris has a 12-point advantage over Verstappen, and only has to finish on the podium to win the title, even if Verstappen wins the race.

Piastri could also still mathematically claim the title, currently 16 points behind Norris and four behind Verstappen.

It's the first time since the 2010 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix that three different drivers could all claim world championship success at the final race of the season.

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