Hakkinen: "Red Bull are so very confident in their strategy decisions"

Mika Hakkinen calls Red Bull Racing 's choice to bring in Max Verstappen as race leader at the Dutch Grand Prix courageous. The Viaplay analyst also zoomed in on Ferrari the day after the race at Circuit Zandvoort. The formation from Maranello disappointed for the umpteenth time this year.

"This looked like an easy win for Max but in fact it was a very tactical race thanks to those two safety car periods. The decision to move him into soft tyres during the second safety car was a brave one because normally you would not want to give Mercedes track position, but Red Bull are so very confident in their strategy decisions, and they knew that Max has the speed and ability to regain the lead," Hakkinen stated.

Festival of errors at Ferrari

In his column for Unibet the two-time world champion also discusses the mistakes made by Ferrari again this weekend. The Italian team has had reliability problems or strategic errors all season and it was no different at Zandvoort. During a pit stop of Carlos Sainz a tyre was not prepared. The pit stop lasted thirteen seconds, which meant the race was already over for him. To make matters worse he also got a five second time penalty after an unsafe release later in the race.

"Ferrari’s race today was again disappointing. They qualified well but they clearly didn’t have the speed in the race and the very poor pit stop of Carlos Sainz was embarrassing," Hakkinen is adamant. "I know Mattia Binotto has admitted on TV that it was ‘a mess’, but this is not the first operational problem for the team and Mattia knows they need to improve in so many areas if they are really to challenge for the World Championship in 2023 or 2024."

Rosberg also critical

Nico Rosberg was one of the analysts who was also highly critical of Ferrari on Sunday. The former F1 driver for Mercedes, among others, stated that even strategists from Formula 2 or Formula 3 teams would do better than Ferrari. Binotto, however, was quick to defend his team. The team boss also stated that no heads will roll in the very short term.