The Brackley-based team had arrived at Silverstone off the back of a run of five consecutive Red Bull victories that had allowed its main rival to extend leads in both world championships.
So it knew it was under pressure at a track that should better suit its package to turn the tables on Red Bull and get itself firmly back in the title fight.
After Lewis Hamilton duly delivered a spectacular victory, despite a controversial crash with Max Verstappen, the team admitted that it felt the pressure before the weekend about how significant a weekend it was going to be.
Trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin said: “I think the big one for us was really that we brought an update kit to the car, we’re going to a circuit that’s historically suited our car very well – certainly suited Lewis very well – and the bit that was quite frightening coming in was, if we didn’t perform well here, we were going to have to have a long, hard look at ourselves.
“Aside from the championship situation and the points that are at stake, the need that we had to…
