Verstappen warned: "Coming up are a lot of circuits that are made for Mercedes"

After Max Verstappen's two dominant races in Austria, many people see Red Bull as the big favourite for the title. The lead in both championships is substantial and Verstappen and Red Bull currently appear to be the fastest combination.

Still, according to Jack Nicholls, there should be a comment on the current situation. On the BBC F1 podcast he says he sees Mercedes coming back in the title race for a reason. "There will still be many circuits that are made for the car of Mercedes and where it will perform better. If you look at Silverstone, that's very similar to Spain and they performed fine there." According to Nicholls, this is because Mercedes builds its car in a different way, with a different attitude.

"Mercedes is focusing on making a car that works as a baseline for all circuits. When you get to mavericks like Monaco, Baku and Singapore, Mercedes is then a little bit less there and Red Bull stronger. But we've already seen Hamilton be strong in England, Hungary, Spain and so on. The title fight is far from over."

Jumping to conclusions too quickly about who is fastest?

Indeed, that's what Jolyon Palmer thinks in this podcast. "Red Bull have the strongest package now, but it's only a few races ago at Paul Ricard where Hamilton should have won the race said had the better package. Now, after two convincing wins in Austria, Red Bull has the strongest package again. Silverstone is the perfect circuit in that respect for Hamilton to hit back."

Finally, both men also agree that Mercedes have some updates coming. "Mercedes has said that the whole 'there will be no more updates' story was not true. There really is more to come." Whether the updates will work and whether they can close or reduce the gap with Verstappen before the summer break we will see next weekend.