Max Verstappen aims to maintain relentless F1 title charge by ending British GP jinx

After the pinched confines of Austria, Formula One moves on to the legendary sprawling leviathan that is Silverstone.

Splashed over 5.9 kilometres of English countryside, a few hours north of London, Sunday’s British Grand Prix is one of the epic challenges of world motor sport.

Motorway wide, super smooth tarmac and long, sweeping, corners allow for one of the fastest average speeds in the entire year, topping 250km/h.

It may be round 10 but Silverstone is the first circuit with the proportions to do real justice to the new breed of bigger, heavier, speeding F1 monsters.

And Max Verstappen may have won there twice but he returns after nine years in F1 still hunting his first British GP win.

He has triumphed in the accompanying sprint event and even the headline Sunday race but that was in the covid blighted times when it was called The Anniversary Grand Prix.

After win number 42 in Spielberg the British and Singapore Grands Prix are the only prizes missing from the champion’s bulging trophy cabinet (new venues aside).

That victory lifted him clear of the win total of Ayrton Senna and into the all time top five. Ahead lie Lewis Hamilton (103), Michael Schumacher (91), Sebastian Vettel (53) and Alain Prost (51).

At his current pace (seven wins in nine) there is every chance he will overtake Prost, a four-time champion, before the end of the season.

Surely even someone as relentlessly fast and metronomically consistent as Verstappen cannot win 11 of the remaining 13 races to move to third?

The track’s high speeds and the need for stability through some fearsomely fast chicanes and bends all favour Verstappen and Red Bull.

Silverstone tracks the fringe supply roads and runways of a Second World War airfield and today’s V6