Max Verstappen hopes the combination of softer tyres and warmer weather can help Red Bull keep Mercedes honest at the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix.
Last weekend’s first race at Silverstone saw the German manufacturer continue their 2020 domination, with Lewis Hamilton a full second faster than the Dutchman in qualifying.
On the Sunday, Verstappen again wasn’t able to keep pace, running a lonely third until the late tyre failures saw him snatch second from Valtteri Bottas.
And while he has already predicted a repeat this weekend, Max at least knows he can’t rule anything out given the drama that unfolded.
“We got lucky with Valtteri’s puncture,” he said ahead of this weekend. “Hopefully, we can put the pressure on, and there are still a lot of races left this year.
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“We have to be realistic about where we are on pace at the moment, and fighting them for victories and the championship under normal circumstances is quite tricky.
“But the car is getting better, it’s more predictable, so if we can keep in touch then there is always a chance, so we’ll keep pushing to close the gap and we will try not to make life easy for them.
“The tyre compounds this weekend are going to be softer, the weather is going to be warmer and the strategy could be different so I’m looking forward to it,” he added.
“We’ve had a week at Silverstone now so everyone knows what they’re doing around the track, so let’s see if we can learn even more about the car and try to improve it further.”
Mercedes too are wary of the different factors in play for the second Silverstone race as well as unknown situations that may also still hit.
“The race [last weekend] tells you anything can happen, it’s also early in the year with new cars. There will be reliability issues that we find over the next few races that are lurking in there,” chief engineer Andrew Shovlin said.
“Strategy aside, getting the cars around a lap in qualifying without [the tyres] dropping off will be another significant challenge.
“We’ve not excelled in hot conditions. We’re pretty strong when the track’s at about 40 degrees.
“The couple of instances we’ve seen where it’s at 50 in free practice, it seems that our margins do get eroded. We need to make sure our nose is still ahead of Red Bull.”
