Why Verstappen will be counting sheep in F1's 70th Anniversary GP

Silverstone's expanse is flat, wide, spacious - it's what made it such a good spot for an airfield. The track is famously flat too, and the circuit's wide and spacious nature are the reason it is one of the few tracks in the UK that can actually accommodate everything required to host a Formula 1 grand prix.

Wide and spacious apply to the Wing complex too. In the summer of 2020, the pit building-cum-exhibition space (in 'normal' times) is strictly organised per the track's COVID-secure protocols - a warren of one-way paths to follow to a destination - team and crew catering, coronavirus testing area, the media centre. Of those examples, the final terminus had the feel of an exam hall: wide and spacious, with individual desks delicately spaced out, generally quiet and calm.

But it had something intriguingly flat in it too. A data visualisation section on the timing screens, which represented the 3.661-mile, 18-turn track as a flat line, with the cars GPS loggers showing where each driver was on the course. This is nothing new in F1, McLaren's Mission Control room at its Woking base represents the track as a circle. It's a tool the teams use to keep the drivers informed when it comes to the positioning of other cars nearby.

During last weekend's British Grand Prix, the positioning line graphic really rammed home two things - just how devastatingly fast the Mercedes W11 is compared to its opposition and how brilliantly Max Verstappen is performing this season, to barely hang on to Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas as they go to work in the black machines.

Verstappen is currently a clear third in the standings on 52 points, just six behind Bottas after the late tyre drama in last Sunday's race dropped the Finn out of the points (although he probably should have recovered to 10th given he had two laps to overcome two-seconds to Sebastian Vettel, who was on tyres that had already done 38 laps...).

Red Bull feels Verstappen could have been a victory threat in the season opener had he not retired with a power problem, which makes sense given he was running second on a better tyre strategy (which he had used to win at the Red Bull Ring the year before), and the Mercedes drivers ran into the reliability concerns that arose from the track's gearbox-pounding kerbs.

A week later, Verstappen was third as Mercedes exploited its pace advantage and the absence of a Red Bull rear-gunner to recover a 1-2 after Bottas qualified fourth. And in Hungary he banished his pre-race crash with a brilliant drive to second behind the dominant Hamilton, defying Bottas's attempt to recreate Hamilton's race-winning move at the Hungaroring in 2019.

Right now, Verstappen is the only thorn anywhere near Mercedes' side, which was visualised on the Silverstone positioning line. The Mercedes duo edged clear of Verstappen to the tune of 0.359s per lap, which left him a lonely third. But the rest were a very long way adrift. At the end of lap 49, Verstappen was 14.1s off the lead - and at the end of that tour Bottas's left-front tyre had started deflating. Charles Leclerc, in fourth, was 43.508s adrift.

It seems Verstappen can cope with the recalcitrant RB16 in a way team-mate Alex Albon cannot. This ultimately presents Red Bull with a slight headache when it comes to fixing the aerodynamic anomalies the team admits it must address with the car, and it felt it made progress with last weekend. But a driver coping and delivering with a tricky car is a good problem to have, so the cliche goes.

"If you keep dreaming about those chances, it's not going to happen. We just have to keep working" Max Verstappen

Verstappen's current performance level meant he came so close to winning the British GP when Hamilton hit tyre disaster on the final lap - and had he not stopped to switch tyres after passing Bottas (debating the merits of this are ultimately pointless) he would have done. Leclerc had no chance given the gap, even if the Ferrari driver's race was also exceptional.

The tyre dramas were the only talking point of a race that for so long had been a bit of a dull one. And this interest was exacerbated because, as we explained in the 30 July issue of Autosport magazine, F1 is staying put for another Silverstone race this weekend. And, the tyres will be a step softer.

PLUS: Why Silverstone is "not friends" with tyres

The results of Pirelli's investigation into the failures have been laid out, but in any case the drivers were already expecting the 70th Anniversary GP to be a two-stop affair rather than the typical Silverstone one-stopper.

"One step softer is going to be a challenge for us all and no doubt will move us all to at least a two-stop," explains Hamilton.

Given the events at the climax of the race last weekend, that offers a glimmer of hope to Mercedes' rivals, but Verstappen - the best placed to comment - doesn't see it that way.

"I don't think it will change a lot," he says. "[The gap to Mercedes] it's so big, c'mon! Maybe you find a tenth, or one-and-a-half. OK, we are a bit closer [in the British GP] - but it's not close enough. I'm trying but it's not possible at the moment.

"You have to be realistic. I mean you can dream, and you can hope, but I think it's way more important to be realistic because that's how you move forward. If you keep dreaming about those chances, it's not going to happen. We just have to keep working."

Verstappen's frankness is a delight among the usual safe messaging drivers deliver week in, week out. It shows his power and status at the team too - he can speak in a way basically no other young Red Bull driver can (although he alone has been a superstar at such a young age for so long).

But it reveals the scale of the task he and Red Bull face. They can be honest about where they sit because it can't hurt their position. Mercedes is a second to the good gone in qualifying, and will edge away in the race no matter how brilliant Verstappen currently is.

"I don't think there will be a lot of changes to the way I will be driving," he says when Autosport asks if the tyre drama gives him any hope for beating Mercedes this weekend.

"So I'll probably be counting some sheep next to the track."