A warm summer’s day, at one of the sport’s most demanding circuits, and some softer tyres was all it took to knock the Mercedes juggernaut off course at the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix.
The two black cars that had looked unbeatable in the first four races of the season suddenly did not look so special. Their high performance became their Achilles’ Heel and they tore their tyres to shreds around the high-speed sweeps of Silverstone.
If anyone was going to benefit from a situation like this, it was always going to be Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, and the Dutchman turned in one of those days when he looks irresistible.
Give Verstappen a sniff and he locks onto it like a pit bull. Early in the race, his team were warning him to be careful of his tyres as he homed in on the Mercedes in front of him.
“Mate,” he replied to his engineer Giampiero Lambiase, “this is the only chance. I’m not backing off and driving like a grandma.”
