Where did Red Bull lose the race? 'That favoured Ferrari'

Ferrari clearly had the pace to beat Red Bull Racing on home soil at the Austrian Grand Prix, but unlike in previous events the Italian team managed to keep its cool and turn its advantage into a win. The Scuderia's strategists can therefore count on high praise from Mika Hakkinen, but they will need to hang on to that confidence if they are to continue to make things difficult for Red Bull.

"Ferrari switching its race strategy to match Red Bull’s and showing a combination of speed and confidence which has been lacking in recent races," Hakkinen begins in his column for Unibet. The fact that the Italian stable was able to beat the competition in a straight fight will give the team a lot of confidence, according to the Finn.

Hakkinen on Ferrari advantage

Ferrari have done everything in their power recently to close the gap on Red Bull in top speed, but also had things better in terms of tyre performance. The latter has proved crucial in Formula 1, especially this year, and how the tyres perform differs from circuit to circuit. "The track in Austria tends to make rear tyre wear more critical than the front, and this favoured Ferrari," explains Hakkinen.

Strategically, Ferrari have missed the mark a few times this year, but at the Austrian Grand Prix the team kept their cool. "When they saw Max switch to a two-stop strategy they followed, but by making their pit stops significantly later they always retained a strong tyre advantage. This is the kind of confident strategy Ferrari will need to maintain if they are to consistently challenge Red Bull," continued the two-time world champion.

However, Hakkinen does note one more area of improvement at the Italian racing stable. "Carlos’s engine failure shows that Ferrari still have work to do on reliability," assessed the Finn, who believes the gap to Verstappen remains difficult to bridge. "Charles cannot afford to have those kinds of failures if he is to close the gap to Max. In fact he needs Max to have a non-finish if the points gap in the World Championship is to really close down," said Hakkinen.