Max Verstappen has suggested he’d like to see more two-stop races after winning the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix at Silverstone.
The Dutchman benefitted from Mercedes struggling with high tyre wear and blisters as he used strategy to get ahead of Lewis Hamilton and passed Valtteri Bottas shortly after his first pit-stop to claim his first win of the year.
But in a year where the German manufacturer has been so dominant, Max admits their sudden vulnerability on Sunday was a surprise.
“I didn’t see it coming,” Verstappen said.
“After the first stint, it seemed like we were really good on tyres but of course there is a question mark, ‘how Mercedes is going to go on the hard tyre?’.
“We had a lot of pace in the car, I didn’t really have a lot of tyre issues at all. We just kept pushing, and [it’s] an incredible result of course to win here.”
Speaking in parc ferme, Sky Sports’ Martin Brundle suggested a key moment was when Verstappen overrode a message from Red Bull to back off as he approached Hamilton, saying “I’m not just sitting behind like a grandma!”.
“We so far [this season] didn’t really have an opportunity in all the races to push them, and I could see we were pushing them,” Verstappen explained.
“So I tried to put the pressure on. They had to pit, and from then onwards, I could do my own pace, and basically built that that advantage to the end.”
The result put Verstappen up to second in the Drivers’ standings ahead of Bottas, albeit still 30 points behind Hamilton.
But asked if this weekend could be a turning point in Red Bull’s season, the 22-year-old was realistic.
“I don’t know, I think we do need to use soft tyres, that seems to suit our car, but we’ll see again in Barcelona,” he said. “I think at the moment, we are just very happy that we just won!”
Later on though, he did think Pirelli’s more aggressive tyre choice had perhaps highlighted a weakness in their rivals.
“It’s a bit of a shame we don’t have this on other circuits more often,” he added. “Normally you always do a one-stop.
“You can see that this (the softer tyres) also gives more problems at Mercedes.”
