1 Red Bull outfoxes Mercedes for Verstappen victory
A popular maxim has it that the definition of insanity is to repeat an unsuccessful course of action in the expectation of achieving a different result. Having concluded that following a similar strategy to Mercedes in F1’s 70th Anniversary GP at Silverstone would yield another defeat, Red Bull opted for a risky alternate strategy, which yielded an unexpectedly dominant victory for Max Verstappen.
For Silverstone’s second consecutive race weekend the Pirelli tyre specification was a step softer and this, in combination with soaring temperatures, weakened Mercedes and opened strategic options further down the field.
Verstappen qualified fourth, behind the Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton, and Nico Hülkenberg’s Racing Point, but was the only driver in the top 10 to start on the hardest tyre compound, having earned that right by setting his fastest Q2 lap on it. Max dispensed with Hülkenberg at Abbey on the opening lap and had the pace to stay with the Mercedes as the trio broke clear – running close enough to warrant a reminder from race engineer
Gianpiero Lambiase to hang back. “I’m not going to sit behind like a grandma,” Verstappen responded.
It was at this point Red Bull began to realise that not only was its strategy working more effectively than anticipated, many of the risks were falling away. The original plan had been to give Max a tyre advantage at the end of the race in the event of a Safety Car; instead he was able to overcut the Mercedes hugely by running 13 laps longer than early race leader Bottas and 12 longer than Hamilton.
The Mercedes drivers were in tyre-management mode from the off, and yet were still forced to get rid of the medium rubber earlier than they would have preferred – only to find the sheer downforce of the W11 was punishing the hard compound too. By the time Verstappen pitted for mediums at the end of lap 26, he’d been on average half a second per lap faster than Bottas on like-for-like rubber and both Mercedes were exhibiting symptoms of blisters.
This enabled Verstappen to come out of the pits on the tail of Bottas and pass him straight away. Such was the Red Bull’s pace that the team no longer needed the endgame scenario of its previous strategy, so Max was instructed to forget about tyre management and pump in six quick laps on the relatively fragile medium before stopping for a fresh set of hards. Bottas pitted on the same lap, nullifying any chance of him passing Max via strategy.
Mercedes left Hamilton out until 11 laps from the end in the hope he could make something of the tyre offset. On fresher rubber he caught and passed his team-mate but was unable to catch the Red Bull.
“As a team we were sleeping,” harrumphed Bottas. “My strategy was far from ideal.”