Rain hit hard ahead of the start of the 2022 Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix, prompting the FIA to force all drivers out on extreme wet tyres. As the laps passed after the start behind the safety car, the track dried up, and the factor of strategy came into play, which Red Bull did to perfection.
On lap 14 , the wall of the Milton Keynes team spoke with Sergio Pérez to explore the possibility of putting the intermediates, with the risk that it entailed, and two laps later, the Mexican entered the pitlane.
Thanks to this and to the fact that Ferrari responded one lap late with Leclerc, Checo moved ahead of the driver defending the pole position, although there was still one last obstacle to victory, Carlos Sainz.
The Spanish driver waited until lap 22 to switch to dry tires, while Pérez shaved off several seconds per lap. Red Bull decided to enter to put the dry compounds with the one from Guadalajara, and to everyone’s surprise, it came out in the lead.
Therefore, the adviser to the Austrian team, Helmut Marko , did not hesitate to praise the person who made the decisions on the wall, the strategist Hannah Schmitz : “I cannot judge how Ferrari did it, but we are happy to have taken advantage of the opportunities that were introduced to us.”
“I’m very proud of the entire team, especially our chief strategist, Hannah [Schmitz],” he said. “He got a lot of information from Milton Keynes [the team’s factory], but kept calm and waited to make the right decision.”
“Not only did he help us win, he put Max [Verstappen] ahead of Leclerc,” he continued. “The deciding factor was strategy, although others did faster laps on intermediate tyres, it was important to stay calm.”
