0:46 Listen to Max Verstappen’s priceless reaction to being told on the radio to hold back and save his tyres in his pursuit of the Mercedes’ at Silverstone
It was the first shake-up in the early-season pecking order, and a surprise after Mercedes beat Red Bull by over a second in qualifying the day before.
“Obviously the Red Bull seems to be quite close in race conditions to us and obviously [they were] stronger [on Sunday] so it shows they don’t have as bad a package as perhaps people had said in the past,” said Hamilton.
“But I think it’s good. It will be interesting to see the progression through the rest of the year and I definitely will not overlook them.
1:27 Lewis Hamilton goes around the outside of Brooklands, an easy overtake in the end as he moved to second ahead of team-mate Valtteri Bottas!
“I think we’ve got to keep a close eye on them and keep working to push forwards because I don’t think it’s going to be easy by any means.
“But I don’t think my team has that mentality anyway so we just keep our heads down.”
Verstappen has yet to beat Hamilton in qualifying this season and he says that’s where Red Bull have to try and find gains, while also hoping for race conditions similar to those at Silverstone.
“Yes we can get closer but we are also lacking quite a lot of top speed,” Verstappen told Sky F1 of the Honda-powered outfit. “In qualifying I think it will be very hard to be close to them because once we go to Q2, Q3, they turn it up and they gain like four, five tenths on the straight and it’s very hard to fight that.
1:17 Max Verstappen overtakes Valtteri Bottas for the race lead during the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix
“But of course in the race they can’t really use it as much and then automatically we come a little bit closer to them, and we can sometimes put on a little bit of pressure.
“And then a day like [Sunday] when they’re struggling with tyres and we don’t have any issues, then of course you can win that race.”
Sourse: skysports.com
