Verstappen on shock Silverstone win: I didn't see it coming!
Monday, 10 August 2020
The thrilling win was not expected by the Dutchman.
Max Verstappen admitted he was taken by surprise when a chance emerged for him to win the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix at Silverstone.
Mercedes won the first four races of the 2020 Formula 1® season and looked poised to continue that dominance when they locked out the front row for Sunday's race.
However, Verstappen produced a brilliant drive to triumph from fourth on the grid, Red Bull's decision to start on the hard tyre and Mercedes' struggles in hot conditions helping him to secure a ninth career win.
The Dutchman ended up 11 seconds clear at the front as Lewis Hamilton passed Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas for second place late on, and the Red Bull star was shocked by how the race unfolded.
"I didn't see it coming, but after the first stint it seemed like we were really good on tyres," said Verstappen, who moved above Bottas into second place in the drivers' standings.
"Of course then it was a question mark on how Mercedes were gonna go on the hard tyre. We had a lot of pace in the car and I didn't really have a lot of tyre issues at all. We just kept pushing.
"An incredible result of course to win here, we just had a great day - everything worked out well and we had the right strategy.
"Everything was running smoothly and I'm incredibly happy to win."
VERSTAPPEN: “We had a lot of pace in the car. We kept pushing. We had a great day… we had the right strategy. I tried to put the pressure on [Mercedes] and they had to pit"#F170 #F1 pic.twitter.com/WPAcsSMUnc
— Formula 1 (@F1) August 9, 2020
In an entertaining radio message while he was third early in the race, Verstappen refused an instruction to sit back and preserve tyres "like grandma", instead opting to put pressure on the front two.
He continued: "We haven't really had an opportunity in all the races so far to push them and I could see we were pushing them.
"So I tried to put the pressure on, they had to pit, from there on I did my own pace and built that advantage until the end."
Asked if the Red Bull car was now a Mercedes-beater, Verstappen said: "I don't know, we need to use soft tyres as they suit our car most.
"We will see again in Barcelona, for now we are just very happy that we won."
