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Hakkinen warns Red Bull Verstappen and Perez needed

Former F1 world champion: 'Verstappen can't do it alone'

21 June at 11:51
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  • Nicole Mulder

Two-time F1 world champion Mika Hakkinen believes victory will not be Red Bull's at the Spanish Grand Prix. The two-time world champion says that the team needs both Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez up front to keep the strong competition behind them. If not, other teams will capitalise on their errors. 

Hakkinen: 'Red Bull needs Verstappen as well as Perez'

Red Bull has had a couple of challenging F1 weekends. In Canada, Verstappen won with Lando Norris right behind him. Besides McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes have also moved closer. According to Hakkinen, Verstappen's win underlined the confidence he has in himself, the car and the team. "Even when they have a weekend of extremely challenging conditions and close competition. There was nothing easy about that win," the former McLaren driver wrote in his column for Unibet.

"On a difficult weekend for teammate Checo Perez, Max still delivered the victory for Red Bull and it’s hard not to predict another success for him in Barcelona on Sunday. He has won here for the last two years and we should remember that this is also where he took his first ever Formula 1 win back in 2016, becoming the youngest winner in F1 history," the Finn continued.

However, Hakkinen stresses that Red Bull needs both cars at the front of the grid to keep the competition behind it, including in Spain. "The danger for Red Bull remains the consistency and strength of the driver line-ups at Ferrari, McLaren and Mercedes. The World Champions need both cars running at the front," said Hakkinen. "The competition is so strong that Red Bull do not need to be relying only on Max to deliver the win, otherwise they run the risk of one of their rivals being able to run more optimised 2-car race strategies to challenge for the win." Concluded the F1 legend.