Red Bull’s Unsung Hero Grabs the Limelight After Max Verstappen’s Dominant Season

Since there are no women racers on the grid, the FIA has taken some drastic steps to make the sport more diverse and inclusive. Among the many females working in F1, Hannah Schmitz is one of the most recognized names. The Red Bull team strategist has played a pivotal role in their glorious run. As a result, Max Verstappen won the WDC, whereas Red Bull won the WCC.

Hannah is the Principal Strategy Engineer for Red Bull Racing. Schmitz and her team calculate and analyze billions of data points alongside simulating scenarios that define what happens across a race weekend. Subsequently, her work helped Red Bull and Max Verstappen to achieve great heights this season.

As a reward for her great work, Hannah, along with 2 other women on the grid, was nominated for the McLaren Female Engineer of the Year award. Krystina Emmanouilides, a CFD Development Engineer at Alfa Romeo, and Charlotte Phelps, Mercedes F1 Powertrains Strategy Engineer, were the two other females nominated for their ongoing and tireless efforts in the sport.

Eventually, it was Hannah who won the award. Announcing the same, McLaren Applied tweeted, “The winner of the first McLaren Applied Female Engineer of the Year Award is… Hannah Schmitz. The judges were impressed with her strategic ability and success in making spilt second decisions under pressure.”

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Hannah and Red Bull will hope their star driver, Verstappen can keep delivering success on the track.

Former F1 champion claims Max Verstappen has done a “great job” with his team and engineers

Double world champion Mika Hakkinen praised Red Bull’s Max Verstappen for a solid season. However, the Finn believes that the sport’s changing regulations open up the threat for Red Bull against their rivals. Furthermore, he also commented that Verstappen won’t find the next year as easy as it was this year.

The Finn told Sky Sports, “He [Verstappen] has done a great job with a great team and great engineers and designers. Regulations of Formula 1 are different now than it used to be in my time, or used to be three or four years ago. That gives a lot of opportunities to other teams for success.”

He further continued, “I don’t think it is so straightforward that he will continue to dominate, even as he’s a great driver. I am sure we will see some surprises.”

Verstappen won a staggering 15 races in total this year. As a result, he smashed the record for most race wins in a calendar year (Previously 13 held by Sebastian Vettel and Michael Schumacher) with some ease.

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The Dutch Lion will be hoping that the cost-cap penalty does not impact next season a lot. Can Max Verstappen defend his title like a Lion next season?