Thoughts that anyone may have had about Sunday’s 70th Anniversary Grand Prix being a repeat of the British Grand Prix from the previous weekend were very quickly dispelled yesterday afternoon when it became apparent that Max Verstappen had the pace to stay with the leading Mercs and even more that RedBull’s strategy of starting on the hard tyres could work.
The decision by Formula One to go a step softer in the tyre range proved to be correct and gave us an enthralling and exciting race worthy of the 70 years of F1 history that it was representing. Max took a brilliant win that was both unexpected and perfectly judged by team and driver. Even a slower stop by the RedBull team, something that they are normally very good at, couldn’t hold back the flying Dutchman.
The win was built on the back of Max deciding to qualify on the harder tyres in the Q2 session thereby giving him the most durable rubber for the start of the race and allowing him to go longer into the race before stopping. The pace in the early though was also a very important part of the victory. Verstappen stayed with both the Mercedes drivers and when their tyres started to give up it was clear that Max had a serious chance of taking the fight to them for the win.
Even coming out from his first stop just behind Bottas didn’t prove to be a problem as he swiftly overtook the Finn on the Wellington Straight. It was a fine drive and a very deserved victory. After Mercedes have been so dominant so far this season it was indeed a surprise and a pleasure to see another team and driver pushing them and causing them problems. I dont believe anyone was thinking pre-race that anyone other than a Mercedes driver would cross the line first, I know I certainly didn’t. They looked like they had enough pace to cover any eventuality.
That Hamilton was able to climb back to second after taking his second stop later than his rivals and so having better tyres in the closing stages means that the result was not a bad one for him. He has extended his lead at the top of the championship table and when you can’t win you have to score big points, so in that respect it was an reasonable result for him. It will his team mate that will be feeling unhappy this morning as he dropped from Pole to third at the end of the race in an event where he knew it was important for him to put pressure on Hamilton. He did that on Saturday with a good lap to claim pole position but the race was not a good one for him. As he saw Lewis sweep past him on new tyres a few laps from home his heart must have sank, he couldn’t even manage to take a few points of off his team mate.
After the race he was very vocal about his belief that the team had made strategic errors and while team seemed to refute that there is no doubt that they did not get this weekend right from a race strategy point of view. What may be more worrying for them is the fact that they still seem to suffer in hotter conditions, this has always been an Achilles Heel of their package and continues to be so. It should not cause them to loss the titles this year as the car is great in every other area but in hotter races, Spain next weekend, maybe Mugello in the Tuscan sunshine they may have to deal with some tougher competition.
Elsewhere yesterday we saw another fine drive from Charles LeClerc in a difficult Ferrari to take a good fourth place and another worrisome display from Sebastian Vettel. Vettel just cannot get things together this year and he believes that there is something inherently wrong with his car. If the team give him a new chassis maybe we will see him improve as he is struggling to get into the top ten at the moment and it is hard to believe that it is just down to Sebastian’s driving.
Racing Point managed sixth and seventh which was a solid result but still not what I believe they are capable of. Hulkenberg in seventh had a good race and showed good pace all weekend, and would finished ahead of his team mate Stroll if he had not needed to make another stop at the end when his tyres went off. Sergio Perez will more than likely be back in the car in Spain but Nico has done a fine job for Racing Point and it would be a real shame if he does find his way back to a full time drive in the near future.
Racing Point have other concerns at the moment of course as the protest against them was upheld and that issue will be running for a while to come yet. I won’t go into that too much here as there is plenty more still to happen and I would like to devote a future post to this topic.
The two Silverstone races then have been very enjoyable and produced plenty of drama and excitement, seeing two consecutive races at this brilliant racetrack has been something that I personally have loved, although I may be a little biased, but now the F1 circus moves on and heads south to Spain. Part of me thought that this event would get cancelled because of the developing Covid- 19 issues in the region but for now at least it is still happening and hopefully we will have an exciting race there too. Bring it on.
My F1 talk 