Hakkinen critical: 'Verstappen can't afford to make that kind of mistakes'

Hamilton far from finished

Hakkinen sees the competition for Hamilton getting fiercer, but the Briton is far from finished with his career. "Lewis Hamilton may be closer to the end of his F1 career than to the beginning, but he hasn't lost any of his love for racing. He is really enjoying the challenge Mercedes is taking on with Red Bull."

Hamilton's racing ability is brilliant, according to Hakkinen, but he still saw the Mercedes driver make a mistake. "It was interesting to see him make that little mistake on the Safety Car restart. Lewis looked in his mirrors to check Max Verstappen's position instead of focusing on Valtteri Bottas. Max took full advantage of Lewis' hesitation and grabbed second place."

Mercedes recovers

Mercedes managed to rebound well in Portugal after a somewhat poor start to the season. "One of Mercedes' strengths is their responsiveness, so although I think the Portimao circuit suited their cars a little better than the Red Bulls, Lewis and Valtteri really have an exceptionally strong technical team backing them up."

No mistakes afforded

For Verstappen, it has been the season of track limits so far. "He should have won in Bahrain and could have taken pole position and set the fastest race lap in Portugal," judges the Finn. "But every time he put all four wheels over the line at a certain point of the circuit. You can't afford to make mistakes like that. To beat Lewis, Max has to do a perfect job every weekend."