Red Bull strategy chief Schmitz reveals how team masterminded Verstappen’s comeback victory in Budapest

Red Bull’s principal strategy engineer Hannah Schmitz has provided some insight into how the team helped Max Verstappen go from starting in 10th to standing on the top step of the podium in Hungary – a victory she called “one of the best of the season.”

Starting in 10th and 11th on the grid, Verstappen and Sergio Perez strapped on a set of soft tyres as they looked to make their way through the grid. And speaking on Sky Sports’ Any Driven Monday show, Schmitz revealed that starting the race on the softs was not the original plan.

“So, because we were starting out of position, one of the maybe more classic strategies to do is to start on the harder tyre and go much longer particularly with overtaking being much difficult in Hungary – so that was our plan,” Schmitz revealed. “But we had also actually talked a lot pre-race about if the conditions are a bit damp and very cool as they might have been, that we could consider the soft tyre as the alternative because that might be better in those conditions and the laps to the grid both drivers were very vocal about having hardly any grip even though they were already on the soft tyre.”

Schmitz added: “The race engineers were like ‘we don’t think the hards are a good idea’, we all had a long discussion about it with Christian as well and decided to change to the soft tyres. There was a little bit of rain in the air as well so really that was better the tyre for that condition.

Source: https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.red-bull-strategy-chief-schmitz-reveals-how-team-masterminded-verstappens.DF5cvFKMLnrSVuDrsNjG1.html