Mercedes believe that Red Bull's difficult day at the British Grand Prix could result in them coming back even stronger at the next race. After a successful Saturday which saw Max Verstappen win the first-ever Sprint Qualifying event, Sunday was a different story. The Dutchman crashed out of the Grand Prix on the opening lap following an incident with Lewis Hamilton. Whilst Hamilton received a 10-second penalty for his role in the clash, the seven-times World Champion was still able to go on to win the race. Teammate Valtteri Bottas finished in third. It might have been a good result for Mercedes but the team's trackside engineering director, Andrew Shovlin, is anticipating that Red Bull will want to fight back at the upcoming Hungarian Grand Prix after what happened at Silverstone. "This [Silverstone] is one of our best tracks," Shovlin told RacingNews365.com and other media. "So it would be naive for us to think that we can go there [the Hungaroring] and expect to carry this performance. "Then Red Bull are going to be good at a high downforce circuit. Frankly they're good at every circuit at the moment, and they're going to be a bit bruised after the experience here, so I'm sure that they're going to come back really strong." Shovlin says that the aim for the Silver Arrows is to try to take the lead in the battle before the summer break commences following the Hungarian Grand Prix. "We're about halfway through the championship," Shovlin said. "There's very fine margins in terms of the points. "For us, we're just going to throw everything at it now to try and get through. If we can get ourselves ahead, going into the summer break, that would be fantastic. "So that's probably the target that we'll set ourselves, but I think it's a stretch target. But we've shown here that anything's possible. You've just got to keep going, and trying to get better, trying to improve. "They're a difficult team to beat, but I think we're a strong team and we'll be putting everything into it to try and win." Following the British Grand Prix, Verstappen's lead over Hamilton in the Drivers' Standings has been reduced to eight points, whilst Red Bull's advantage over Mercedes in the Constructors' Championship is now only four points.
Most read
