Mercedes drivers fear invigorated Verstappen fight in scorching Spain

Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas are predicting a repeat of the tyre blistering issues that blighted their efforts in the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix when they head back to mainland Europe for this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix.

With the coronavirus delays forcing organisers to agree a new August schedule for the event at the Circuit de Catalunya-Barcelona venue, the 2020 is set to be a much hotter affair than it would be on its traditional May date.

Coming off the back of a weekend that put the Pirelli tyres to the test in warmer than usual temperatures around a venue with several high-speed corners, Hamilton and Bottas fear the Circuit de Catalunya-Barcelona could present a similar challenge.

“I expect that track, we will probably have similar problems to what we had here, maybe last week, maybe, especially if it’s hot conditions, probably… maybe won’t be as bad as today but still going to be a challenge,” Hamilton said. “It’s (the tyre selection) going to be the same as last week? So still going to be a serious challenge for us.”

With Mercedes’ misstep with the strategy opening the door for Red Bull’s Verstappen to score his first win of the season at Silverstone, Bottas anticipates the Dutchman will be a threat again this weekend.

“I agree, I think it’s going to be a challenge. I haven’t seen the forecast but I guess it’s going to be warm. As least today, it seems like Red Bull, they are pretty strong when it’s hot.”

“We had a good day so we just need to be happy about that but we can also be realistic,” Verstappen added. “We are still lacking pace in qualifying, quite a bit, so we need to solve that first as well and of course we go back to harder tyres in Barcelona.

“Of course, we saw last week that on those harder tyres we are still quite a bit off so I don’t expect any miracles there. I know it’s a hard track on tyres but with these hard tyres you can push quite a bit, harder than what we’ve done here.”