Max Verstappen reign predicted to end despite 'superhuman' Silverstone show

Max Verstappen's reign as Formula 1 champion for the past four years has been predicted to end, notwithstanding what has been described as his "superhuman" qualifying performance at the British Grand Prix.

In the eyes of three-time Le Mans winner Allan McNish, who currently serves as a senior consultant on Audi's F1 project, he feels what the Silverstone crowd witnessed on Saturday was one of the all-time great laps.

Although Red Bull driver Verstappen was in the mix at the front of the field, it appeared as if he was not in the hunt for pole until delivering with what proved to be the final lap of the last session to beat McLaren's Oscar Piastri by a tenth of a second.

Verstappen, though, was unable to follow up in the difficult conditions in the grand prix, not least as the low-downforce rear wing on his RB21 was not suited to the wet conditions.

After sliding off the track and falling from second to 10th at one stage, Verstappen recovered to fifth but is now 69 points adrift of Piastri at the halfway stage of the season.

"My personal feeling is that his reign of world championships is going to change hands at the end of the year," said McNish, speaking to RacingNews365. "The gap in performance, and the consistency of performance, is too big.

"I think what we did see, that performance on Saturday by Max Verstappen, sticking that car on pole position, that was superhuman. That was absolutely sensational.

"That was a lap that will probably not really be recognised, but it should be recognised as one of the laps, because there's no way that he should have been in a position to have that gap around Silverstone that he had over Lando and Oscar. Just no way. But he delivered it."

Asked as to why it would not be recognised, McNish replied: "Because I think people will remember the weekend for other things.

"But that, to me, was a lap. That was one where you could see it building, and you thought, 'Jesus! This is a big one'.

"And that's what Max can do. He can take something and make something of it that probably shouldn't be, which is very hard for his team-mates, because he's got the experience and skill sets to do that.

"It's quite clear the team-mates he's had are not bad, but they struggle to be able to achieve at his level."

Red Bull's gamble with the rear wing might have reaped greater reward if the conditions had been dry on Sunday. Instead, it cost the Dutch driver.

McNish, though, can understand Red Bull's reasoning for wanting to try something different, particularly when it knows it has a driver like Verstappen who can often make such risks pay off. 

"They [Red Bull] have taken a few gambles [in the past]," said McNish. "They've done that in Spa quite often. They were on super low downforce in Spa, and they pulled it off. They had the ability to pull it off.

"And if you've got a driver who has got that sort of exceptional feel, and Max definitely has, with his sensors and sensory feel much more attuned to the early stages of the movement of the car than some others, then you can start to play with these strategies, and you've got half a chance of it coming off.

"They had to try something, but certainly Saturday belonged to Max, I would say."