Hakkinen: "Max has Checo to thank for the win"

According to Mika Hakkinen, Max Verstappen did not win the Azerbaijan Grand Prix entirely on his own merits. Of course the Dutchman was fast on the street circuit of Baku, but the two-time world champion cites in his column for Unibet that he was also lucky with Charles Leclerc and Sergio Perez.

Painful day for Ferrari

The fact that Verstappen now has such a wide lead in the world championship is mainly because Leclerc and Ferrari failed to take victory in Spain, Monaco and Baku. "To have both cars fail to finish is one thing, but on a day when Red Bull then scores a 1-2 finish to extend their lead in both the Drivers and Constructors Wold Championships is a disaster."

According to Hakkinen, Ferrari's full focus in the coming period should be on solving the reliability problems. That it is a structural thing is something we cannot ignore at the moment. In Monaco, three MGU-Ks were destroyed and besides Leclerc and Carlos Sainz, also Kevin Magnussen and Guanyu Zhou didn't make it to the finish on behalf of customer teams.

What is striking is that Red Bull will be the first to take advantage of and maximize the opportunities in 2022 every time. "Every mistake will be punished by Red Bull, which is what we have seen again in Baku," said Hakkinen, who saw Leclerc start from pole position six times this year, but only managed to turn two of them into a win. The other six wins went to Red Bull.

Verstappen got help

For Verstappen, it marked the fifth time that he was able to take the full spoils. However, "Max has Checo to thank for the win, in my opinion, not only in accepting the team’s strategy but also in having a 5 second pit stop at a key moment in the race," the Finn said.