Verstappen thought P5 was the maximum at Silverstone

For Verstappen, P2 was the maximum at Silverstone. The 26-year-old struggled with understeer early in the race. But as the race progressed and more rain fell, the Dutchman strategically outpaced the McLarens of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris. In the process, George Russell dropping out came as a gift for Verstappen.

Verstappen satisfied after the race

After the race, Verstappen looked for his part, very happy with second place. "Of course, I couldn't keep up at the beginning," Verstappen told Sky Sports afterwards. "The Mercedes were pulling away from me and then also the McLarens came by. We were struggling a lot for pace and deg especially, I think. So that is of course a little bit disappointing. We did make the right calls from the slicks to the inters, inters back to slicks and basically, that just kept me in the race. At one point I was looking at P5, and I was like 'Well, it's going to be a long afternoon.' We really maximised this result and I'm happy to finish second considering the pace that we had because it could have been also much worse," said the Dutchman.

Verstappen acknowledges few strengths with the RB20

Despite the speed of Mercedes and McLaren, Verstappen admirably edged ahead of Norris again in the championship. "We just have to hang in there because obviously, we have a good lead in the championship but we have to try and go out from our own strengths and at the moment we don't really have that so we have a bit of work to do."

This article was written in collaboration with Olly Darcy