Red Bull’s strategy engineer Hannah Schmitz has now opened up on how she dealt with the hate she received following Max Verstappen’s controversial win at the 2022 Dutch Grand Prix. The conspiracy involved Red Bull’s sister team, AlphaTauri, who seemingly helped the Dutchman to grab the win.
The controversy followed after Yuki Tsunoda retired on lap 43 of the race and gave Verstappen and others a cheap pit stop under the resulting virtual safety car. Since the 26-year-old consumed much less time in the pits due to the VSC, some fans speculated that Schmitz could be behind this cunning strategy.
Kicking off International Women in Engineering Day with a Q&A from our Principal Strategy Engineer, Hannah Schmitz 🗣
Keep an eye out for more throughout the day 🤘 #IWED pic.twitter.com/R3EHYEY7Ff
— Oracle Red Bull Racing (@redbullracing) June 23, 2022
As a result, the 38-year-old received a lot of hate on social media. Now, Schmitz, while talking to femalesinmotorsport.com as per GP Blog, has responded to the same by stating, “With social media, everyone’s going to have an opinion. You don’t have to listen to all of those. They’re not all right.”
Despite the hate, the British engineer is now a household name in the Red Bull team and F1 in general. Her impeccable nature of quick decisions allowed the Austrian team to snatch a win from a complex situation.
Hannah Schmitz leads the way for women in motorsport
Formula 1 is not a sport where there are many women. Hence, it makes someone like Hannah Schmitz’s work very impressive. Speaking about being one of the very few women in the pit wall, she said, “It was difficult to be one of the first women to sit on the pit wall.”
This is a Hannah Schmitz appreciation tweet.#F1 #USGP pic.twitter.com/HctIQHXW0y
— RBR Daily (@RBR_Daily) October 22, 2023
Now that Schmitz has established herself in the Red Bull team, she is also a strong advocate of diversity in motorsport. Speaking on women’s future in motorsport, she shared that there are ample career options available across all categories.
With that, F1 and the FIA are also trying to bring as many women as possible to the sport. This is why they built up the F1 Academy for women to bring more people like Hannah Schmitz. All in all, Schmitz has already delivered Red Bull their trophies this year, but the real test is about to start in 2024 as the competitors seem to have closed down the gap.
