While Pascal Wehrlein, quite rightly, accepted the praise following his epic drive to eighth in Sunday's Spanish Grand Prix, one of the true architects of a remarkable result that saw the Swiss team, using a 2016 engine, to leapfrog McLaren to take ninth in the standings, allowed herself a wry smile.

London born Ruth Buscombe joined the Hinwil team last season following a surprisingly short stint with Haas. The former Simulations Development Engineer and Strategist at Ferrari, who she joined after University, was one of the first signings at Sauber following the buy-out by Longbow Finance that essentially saved the team.

"At Sauber we have a female principal, which really sets the mood for the whole team," she tells the Guardian. "No one at Sauber cares whether you are a man or a woman, all we care about is working as a team and getting the best results."

Indeed, with Monisha Kaltenborn as CEO and Team Principal, along with Williams, Sauber is seen as one of the F1 teams providing a positive platform for women.

Inspired by her father, who was a McLaren fan, by the age of 11 she had set her sights on a role in the sport.

"I went from wanting to be a princess, to being an astronaut to wanting to be in F1," she admits, revealing that having graduated from Cambridge University, where she studied aerospace and aerothermal engineering, she went on to gain a master's in the role of F1's drag reduction system.

"I used to play all the F1 games and it was noticeable that all of the characters are men," she says. "At school I had teachers trying to dissuade me from doing engineering, not because I wasn't good at it but they were questioning whether I really wanted to be doing it.

"That is most important to change," she continues. "As girls grow up they get an onslaught of 'this is what women do and this is what men do' and unless you are very sure and very stubborn, like I was, someone that is teetering between choices gets a story from teachers and the media that this sort of career is for boys."

Talking about her role in what is still widely regarded as a 'man's sport', she says: "I have had zero problems with drivers, because all they want is to do the best they can.

"All the drivers I have worked with I have had a very good relationship with and they have been very responsive. It is so competitive in this paddock they don't care whether it is a woman or a chipmunk talking to them."

But it has not all been plain sailing.

"With certain people that I have come across you have a necessity to prove your worth," she admits. "Each time you face that it is a challenge like a race. You have to be sure of yourself.

"Every time you have that struggle it makes you stronger, strengthens your resolve, and means you can perform better because you want it so much. I call it 'prove it again syndrome', you have to always prove your worth and value more than if you were a man that didn't have that bias against you."

"It is slowly changing," she concludes. "Having women like Monisha and Claire Williams, which means when you turn on the TV it isn't just middle-class white men, is fantastic. We have a black triple world champion.

"F1 is changing slower than we would like it to but it has to evolve. We should have the best people, we should be colour-blind and gender-blind to make sure we have the best people."