The ingredients heading into the British Grand Prix echo those of the Japanese Grand Prix in April. There, Max Verstappen put the slower Red Bull on pole position with a great lap after a superb recovery from a tough Friday - and then parked in front of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri in the race.
So, what chance of a repeat at Silverstone and the reigning world champion keeping the papaya tide at bay?
That’s the key question heading into the race. Verstappen has a quick car, one that will be hard to pass given he opted for the trimmed-out rear wing that made him fastest in the speed traps.
Overtaking at Silverstone will be a little easier than it was on the processional Suzuka Sunday, and the tyres will be slightly more troublesome than they were in that low-deg race in Japan, but passing is far from straightforward.
“Red Bull is very quick in a straight line, we’re going to be quick in the high-speed,” was Piastri’s summary.
Or, to address it from Verstappen’s perspective: “We're quite quick on the straight, which is not that easy in the high-speed corners to manage."
The key to race strategy will be keeping the wear of the front-left tyre under control, but controlling the degradation of that corner is relatively straightforward through tyre management techniques that avoid overloading it in the fast corners.
Pirelli’s analysis suggests a one-stop race is the quicker option by “two to three seconds” compared to the two-stop.
McLaren and Red Bull (and Mercedes and Ferrari for that matter) have two sets of hards and one of mediums available for the race, so they will build their strategy with the same tyre resources.
That said, if Pirelli is right in arguing a one-stopper must be started on the hards, running to lap 36-42, then it’s unlikely the frontrunners will go that way and will be more likely to two-stop. But much depends on the conditions come the race.
However, McLaren team principal Andrea Stella counters the idea that Verstappen might work the tyres harder owing to his lower-downforce set-up. The situation isn’t that clear cut, he argues.
“When you have the tyre wear that we expect to have at this circuit and in these conditions, our belief is that there is not a great relationship between the downforce level, or the way you produce laptime, and the tyre wear because you will be fast in the straights, which means actually you have to push, if anything, a little bit less in the corners,” explained Stella.
“If you rely on laptime generated in the corners then you do have to push the corners and you may stress your tyres even more. So it’s not clear that the rear wing solution Red Bull adopted will necessarily cause a worse situation from a tyre point of view.”
Verstappen also points out that Red Bull generally struggles more with the tyres than McLaren does, which is true – primarily when it comes to the rears.
But there’s sufficient question marks heading into the race that mean he has to be taken seriously as a potential winner even if it will be more complicated than Suzuka was.
McLaren also has two bullets in the chamber as it has two cars up there, with the second Red Bull of Yuki Tsunoda starting down in 11th.
But there's the threat posed by Ferrari - which Stella argued after qualifying appears to be potentially the quickest car.
Certainly, it can be a factor on race pace, and Stella also refused to count out George Russell in a Mercedes that welcomes the cooler temperatures.
“In terms of dry conditions, it’s very difficult to say who is the best team,” said Stella.
“The laptimes that Ferrari were able to produce in practice were quite impressive. There’s some laptimes they did in high fuel which we were not in condition to repeat, so definitely we thought they would be the favourite for the race and even for qualifying.
"But we ended up seeing that the situation is very tight, so I don’t think we will see a difference between Max, the two McLarens, the two Ferraris and potentially even George.”
All of this adds up to what should be at least a slightly more complicated race than Suzuka, with more cars potentially a threat and Verstappen having to work harder still to stay ahead.
And that’s without even taking into account the possibility of rain at some point on Sunday.
But as Stella said, "the reason why we never rule out Max is because he is Max Verstappen".
