How ruthless Verstappen exploited Mercedes’s Silverstone strength-turned-weakness

There can be no doubt that the Mercedes W11 is the class of the 2020 Formula 1 field. But, for several key reasons, the moment it showed the slightest weakness, Max Verstappen and Red Bull were able to punch straight through the defences of Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas to win the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix.

It had been business as usual in qualifying, where Bottas took pole 0.928 seconds clear of Nico Hulkenberg in a sensational third place for Racing Point. But the grid-setting session is a crucial place to start when it comes to the reasons for Mercedes' defeat.

It wasn't the top 10 shootout segment that ultimately mattered, even if Verstappen did make things a smidge tougher by losing third to the returning Hulkenberg. It was Q2 where Red Bull first gained an advantage that played a pivotal role in getting the team its first win of the season, and quashing any chance of Mercedes sweeping every race win in this most-bizarre year.

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner said Verstappen "had to buy into" another attempt at an alternative strategy ploy - as the team had tried and lost in the Austrian GP season opener when Verstappen's power unit failed. But putting the hard tyres on in Q2 was a bold if logical call given the strength of the tyre - the medium for the previous weekend's British GP at the same venue - and the fact that Red Bull feels it has no choice but to try something unconventional to overcome Mercedes' pure pace advantage.

"Our best bet to take on the Mercedes was to do something different," explained Horner. "And by starting on the hard tyre that was a crucial factor. We were surprised that we were the only team to have a crack at that."

Indeed, Mercedes had come to the conclusion that the medium tyre was the best rubber to have when it came to the final, pole-clinching laps in Q3 given the softs were giving up by the time the drivers arrived at Stowe to complete the final corners in qualifying.

But, fearful an early safety car would lead to a long and difficult second stint on the mediums, it had opted not to try the same approach for Q2 by going harder there. This therefore locked Bottas and Hamilton into a critical first stint on the softer of the only two realistic race tyres given the red-walled softs required the drivers to be in tyre preservation mode before even completing one lap of a stint.

"Hindsight's always a good thing but I really don't know [about qualifying on the hards]," Hamilton later lamented.

Red Bull's early advantage over Mercedes was increased as soon as the lights went out. Hulkenberg - finally making his first F1 race start for eight months after his disappointing DNS the previous weekend - made a slow getaway and Verstappen was clear in third before the first corner at Abbey.

Initially, however, it didn't look as if that advantage was really there, as Bottas immediately romped to a 2.452s lead over Verstappen at the end of the first tour, after seeing off Hamilton's advances through Brooklands and Luffield.

These early exchanges were familiar for two reasons; one, the gap the Mercedes drivers pulled looked like the starts they had made at the opening four races of 2020, and because of their fantastic intra-team scrap on the early tours of the 2019 British GP, where the roar of delight that that battle produced from the crowd was again painfully absent.

The leading duo were having to apply all their tyre management skills in Silverstone's extremely testing high-speed corners, where the W11's downforce level is normally such a strength. Now, the forces the car could reach were just wrecking the rubber

But by lap five, Verstappen began to erode what had become a 3.915s gap to P1. Over the course of the first stint - from lap one to when Bottas peeled in on lap 13 of 52 - Verstappen averaged 1m32.272s to essentially match the early leader's 1m32.250s without the benefit of free air.

Verstappen's pace on the hard was so strong that as he closed in on Hamilton, who feared for the state of his rear tyres as early as lap three, Red Bull tried to hold him off. The team was worried that by being so close to Hamilton's rear, Verstappen would slide more in the dirty air and lose the tyre-life advantage he would inevitably have upon gaining track position as the angry medium tyres cried enough on the W11s.

But Verstappen was having none of it, telling his engineer Gianpiero Lambiase that he was not prepared to be "just sitting behind like a grandma" and following obediently when it was clear that the Mercedes cars were there for the taking. And they were, because "from the very beginning", according to Bottas, the leading duo were having to apply all their tyre management skills - particularly in Silverstone's extremely testing high-speed corners, where the W11's downforce level is normally such a strength. Now, the forces the car could reach were just wrecking the rubber.

"We were managing because we knew that, for us, starting with the medium tyre, the best thing is to go pretty long and not to leave a massive difference to Max in terms of stopping laps," Bottas explained when Autosport asked how hard he was pushing from the off. "We were managing, to be honest, all the race."

Hamilton came in the lap after Bottas had swapped his mediums for the better race tyre and that left Verstappen with a 15.453s lead. Bottas in particular lit up the timing screens - with two tours in the high 1m30s compared to Verstappen's 1m32.0s and 1m31.913 on laps 15 and 16, setting up the toughest test for the Red Bull driver. That was: could he keep up his pace now the three leaders were on the same compound, but with the Mercedes cars having the freshness advantage?

The answer was resounding. Over the nine laps between Bottas's brace of fastest laps in the 1m30s and Verstappen finally coming in for his first service on the 26th tour, the Dutchman averaged 1m31.516s (with lap 26 discounted for both given the Silverstone pitlane cuts the end of the track so significantly), 0.561s per lap faster compared to the polesitter.

What caught Mercedes completely by surprise was just how weak it was on the hards compared to Verstappen. It had been caught in a bind by the contra-starting tyre Red Bull went for, but Mercedes still had the net track position advantage, which it would have been expecting to maintain. But as with their struggles on the mediums, Bottas and Hamilton could not keep the tyres together, with blisters soon appearing on their hard rubber.

"I was trying to manage but I was trying to keep up with Valtteri, to be honest," Hamilton said of his issues early in the race, which continued after his stop. "I was struggling within three laps [of the start] with the rears, and so managing but it wasn't doing anything to help the issue.

"Then I started to lose ground to Valtteri and I've got to look into that because it's rare for me to have as bad deg as I'd had. Usually I'm on the slightly better end of bad deg but today was worse. We haven't had deg like this before. It's big. I don't know what happened today."

Going into the race, the tyres had dominated the talk throughout the various socially distant pre-race media sessions. Of course, the dramatic conclusion of Hamilton's famous seventh Silverstone win came up repeatedly, but the other looming spectre was the softer compound step Pirelli had introduced at F1's behest for the second Silverstone event.

PLUS: The crucial factors that took Hamilton to the brink of disaster

After bring the C2, C3, C4 tyres to the opening three races of the season, the C1 was brought into play as is expected for Silverstone at the British GP. But in a bid to shake things up for the second repeat race of the campaign, the soft range was brought back. And it emphatically worked - for the show.

That decision, allied to Mercedes' historical weakness when things get hotter, undid the reigning champion squad. The W11's incredible downforce in the high-speed corners on a 43-degree track was too much for the softer rubber. And that meant Bottas and Hamilton could not push in those places for fear of making things that much worse, an issue that Verstappen did not have to concern himself with. Mercedes' strength had turned into its weakness in this race.

Red Bull, running a touch less wing and obviously having less overall downforce given the gap Mercedes can pull in qualifying, was just putting less overall stress through the rubber all around the lap during the race. This is why Bottas said Verstappen's tyres simply looked "perfect" post-race.

Hamilton suggested the Red Bull must "have less tyre pressures or something" during his second stint, which he clarified after the race.

"We have to acknowledge that the Red Bull is a pretty fast car. And that's what we have seen today" Toto Wolff

"When we go out and we start the race we have minimal pressures and then during the race they increase," he said. "With more laps, they go on a steep rise and I assume that we just went on a much steeper rise and increase in pressures than [Red Bull]. They must be able to keep their pressures lower than ours and that's why ours were blistering and that was just a theory that I had."

Pirelli had responded to the British GP tyre failures by upping the minimum starting front tyre pressure to 27.0psi from 25.0, and 22.0 from 21.0 on the rears. Hamilton felt this, along with the subsequent pressure increase generated by the heat the tyres received in the race, meant they ended up like "balloons" with "the highest pressures we've ever had on a track like that". It was a perfect storm that led F1's strongest car package to defeat.

"It comes down to the fact that we have a car with high downforce," said Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff, "and obviously when conditions change, parameters change - like temperatures going up, compounds getting softer, pressures going up - we have to acknowledge that the Red Bull is a pretty fast car. And that's what we have seen today."

When Verstappen came in, Red Bull's only real mistake - possibly splitting hairs here - occurred, when it turned around his RB16 with a 3.2s pitstop to fit the mediums. That meant he emerged from the pitlane fractionally behind Bottas, although now well clear of Hamilton.

This barely seemed to faze Verstappen. Just three corners later, he ran onto the Wellington straight with fresher rubber and the aid of DRS, and blasted to Bottas's inside at Brooklands. The Finn was able to hang onto the lead but only for a few more seconds, as Verstappen held his line around the outside of Luffield and had such an advantage that he comfortably ran clear on the exit to gain a lead he would effectively not lose thereafter.

Verstappen's middle stint was a short one, with Red Bull opting to unleash a clearly delighted driver. Of the next six laps once he had seized P1, Verstappen averaged 1m30.692s (discounting his out-lap) to Bottas's 1m30.867s, which meant the Red Bull was 2.168s in front when the duo came into the pits for what would be the final time on lap 32.

This was a curious call from Mercedes, which ultimately left Bottas annoyed at the end given how the finale played out with his team-mate. Wolff insisted Mercedes had no option but to pit at the same time as Verstappen - and they both ran another set of hard tyres to the finish.

But by coming in, when the two-second gap meant there was just time to try a different tactical option with a warning to do the opposite to his rival, Mercedes ultimately left Bottas without a hope of victory, as Verstappen's pace advantage on both compounds was clear. Over the final 19-lap stint, Verstappen pulled clear of Bottas to the tune of 0.39s per lap by the time the race's final podium-settling move was completed on lap 50 - when Hamilton deprived his team-mate of second.

After he climbed from his car, Bottas said Mercedes was "sleeping at some point - when Max managed to get ahead of us, and my strategy was far from ideal".

"I don't think we were sleeping, but I accept his perspective," Wolff responded. "I think we just had the slower car today, and we just admit that.

"His point was, should we have done the opposite to Max? As a matter of fact, this wouldn't have changed anything because Max would have come out with a fresh tyre, and we would have continued with a tyre that wasn't in the best state any more. And he just pitted in front of us. [I'm] not sure what we could have done better."

Now back on an equal tyre strategy to the flag, Verstappen was gone - eventually taking his ninth F1 win by 11.326s, albeit with the Mercedes drivers very slow on the final tours. But there was a brief threat from Hamilton, who ended up trying to make a one-stop strategy work simply because there was "no point", according to Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin, in him coming in.

Mercedes had examined Bottas's first set of hards and concluded there was rubber left to consume despite the blisters. But while Hamilton was remarkably fast given the shocking state of his rears - he actually got his pace back into the 1m30s over laps 32-34 despite them being 18-laps-old at that stage - it was clear that Verstappen had enough in hand of overcome Hamilton's short-lived lead had he needed to. And so, Hamilton came in for the final time on lap 41 - also fearing the ambitious one-stopper would lead to another tyre blowout.

Given its car's obvious might, the fear that Mercedes would steamroll the season and sweep every victory in 2020 was real. But everything has its weakness, and Verstappen and Red Bull were ruthless at Silverstone last weekend

He actually came out behind Ferrari's Charles Leclerc, who did what was generally thought to be basically unthinkable and pull off a one-stopper. Hamilton did briefly get stuck behind the Ferrari, which he had passed on his out-lap after his first stop, but a second move into Stowe - this time with Leclerc resisting much more firmly (but fairly) - did the trick.

Now Hamilton had a 7.24s gap to close to Bottas, which he did with ease thanks to his nine-lap younger tyres. By the end of lap 49 he was right on his team-mate's tail, and on the following tour he used DRS to take second on the run down the Wellington straight. Bottas's pole had turned to third place and he was clearly less than impressed.

"Definitely I should have gone long in the second stint," he said. "The last stint was way too long and that's when I lost the position to Lewis."

Given its car's obvious might, the fear that Mercedes would steamroll the season and sweep every victory in 2020 was real. But everything has its weakness, and Verstappen and Red Bull were ruthless at Silverstone last weekend.

Heading to the Spanish GP this weekend, the August sunshine and high-energy Barcelona circuit could yet cause the world champion squad to stumble even as the rubber goes back up a step in terms of harder compounds. It now only has a few days to cure the unexpected problem not seen on its 2019 challenger, which Shovlin admits leaves it at the "very worst end of that problem, and Red Bull appear to be, here, at the very best end of that spectrum".

Verstappen wasn't getting carried away with his expectations for the upcoming races, at 22 years old of course he's far too wily for all that, but he nevertheless revelled in a brilliant, and brilliantly executed, victory.

"An incredible result to win here and we just had a great day," he beamed. "Everything worked out well: we had the right strategy, everything was running smooth. Incredibly happy to win."