Max Verstappen rubbed salt into Ferrari wounds by claiming his Hungarian Grand Prix victory was made possible by the decisions of Red Bull's "very good" strategist Hannah Schmitz.
The Dutchman drove from 10th place on the grid to win the race quite comfortably, with Lewis Hamilton his nearest challenger. For Ferrari, however, it was another weekend to forget as their latest strategy shocker cost Charles Leclerc the chance to compete for the victory.
Despite having the data from other teams to guide them, the Italians decided to pit Leclerc and change to the hard compound. But in the low track temperatures the Monegasque struggled to get any heat into the tyres and fell back through the order, limping home in sixth place.
It was far from their first costly strategy blunder of the year, meaning much of the attention was on Ferrari after the race. Verstappen, meanwhile, was able to celebrate yet another race win and was keen to point out just how much he can rely on his own strategy department.
Asked in the post-race press conference about the subject, he told reporters: "It's incredibly important if you want to fight for a Championship. You know, you can't afford many mistakes.
"It's of course, very hard, to always be on the good side, let's say it like that. But I think we have a lot of good guys in the team and girls. Today, I think Hannah, our strategist, was insanely calm. Yeah, she's very good.
Verstappen was particularly pleased with his own performance, too, especially after surviving a spin to still go on to romp to victory. "I was struggling a bit with the shifts and the clutch, and we had to change a few things around that to basically burn the clutch," he said of that one hairy moment.
"That cost a bit of performance and I think that caught me out of that corner. But luckily, I could do a 360 so I only lost one spot. I was, of course, hoping that I could get close to a podium. Very tricky conditions out there. But I think we had a really good strategy.
"We were really reactive and always pitting at the right time, I think we had some good out laps. Then, at the end, even with a 360, we won the race. I was battling a lot of guys so it was a lot of fun out there. Crazy race, and I'm very happy I won it."
